ĚUROFÅBŔIQUË

The Rapture of Europe / The Abduction of Europe

(denotative/ connotative sense)

Myth transcends memory, time, borders and social categories. In terms of its propagation in a globalised society, the recovery of myth takes place through the continuous entrainment of the individual and collective imagination. It is worth noting in this respect the idea of anthropologist Arjun Appadurai:

”In suggesting that the imagination in the post electronic world plays a newly significant role, I rest my case on three distinctions. First, the imagination has broken out of the special expressive space of art, myth, and ritual and has now become a part of the quotidian mental work of ordinary people in many societies. It has entered the logic of ordinary life from which it had largely been successfully sequestered. Of course, this has precedents in the great revolutions, cargo cults, and messianic movements of other times, in which forceful leaders implanted their visions into social life, thus creating powerful movements for social change. Now, however, it is no longer a matter of specially endowed (charismatic) individuals, injecting the imagination where it does not belong. Ordinary people have begun to deploy their imaginations in the practice of their everyday lives. This fact is exemplified in the mutual contextualizing of motion and mediation.”

“The Rapture of Europe” proposes the reiteration of a myth, the connotations of its destiny being linked to the idea of salvation. Within the European community, the recovery of the myth in the sense of collective salvation takes place in different contexts, determined by the evolution of history and its consequences.

The questioning of the methods of maintaining global/European integrity brings into conversation new methods of maintaining and preserving the natural environment and our cultural heritage. Constant problems such as migration or climate change, as well as imminent economic, health, social and political crises have immediate repercussions and lead to successive states of insecurity. At the same time, they motivate us to reconsider our values, triggering prompt decisions and actions that set a sustainable course for the future of humanity.

Processes, methodology, experimentation affirm the dose of creativity on which our future increasingly depends. We therefore expect a creative approach in the scientific sphere and equally a programmatic orientation in the sphere of artistic creation.

We imagine situations and facts; we make predictions and we address challenges in the sensitive environments in which we co-exist.  We are open towards nature and life, aided by tradition and new technologies. The intention is to recover, metaphorically, the idea of cohesion of cultural identities and the setting of a plurivalent language of the European community. The diversity of this language lies in the richness of the possibilities of imagining the many facets of a common, stable, European future.

Keywords: myth, Europe, creation, transition, hospitality, recovery, tolerance, biodiversity, rebirth….

Ioan Sbarciu & Olimpia Bera

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