About

The Wake Up! Memorial

as a dynamic platform – open to react on current developments in human civilization
The Wake Up Memorial – currently incorporating following commemorative contexts –

would like to sensitize and activate people for social, cultural, political, and environmental issues via art! Commemorating as a perspective for the future!
Its initiator, Wilfried Agricola de Cologne was founding already in 2000 – A Virtual Memorial Foundation as a platform for commemorating the Future, by commemorating Present and PAST.

While “The Wake-Up! Memorial” was initiated in 2015 in order to activate the artists to show face against most recent social, cultural or political developments via the commemorative context
://self~imaging against Populism and Intolerance, it started actually already when Agricola de Cologne released in in 2002 The AIDS Memorial, dedicated to the victims of AIDS, 2003 – The Rainforest Memorial, dedicated to the endangered natural environment on EARTH, and 2004 The TSUNAMI Memorial, dedicated to the victims of this natural disaster. Not only nowadays in 2019, but already 2003 and much earlier, the survival of rainforst – the natural environment on Earth was endangered seriously, and meanwhile the situation turned to the worst – the new commemorative context “Wake Up! – Climate Change! is reacting on the current state of general awareness.

The AIDS Memorial
was launched on December 1, 2001, World AIDS Day, and is dedicated to the victims of AIDS, and in particular to all artists who have died from AIDS, but also to anyone who suffers from HIV or to the onset of the disease AIDS have died.

The RRF Project
It’s about the big topic, how to deal with memory. The first “R” is standing for “remembering”, the second “R” for repressing”, and the “F” is standing for “forgetting”.
This project featuring more than 350 artist from different disciplines, running since 2003 about 3 years – being presented more than 60 times all all over the world- was dealing with essential questions of human existence while facing increasing violence in society and the 2003 beginning Iraq war. Yes, how to deal properly with the memory of violence!

self / portrait – artist for peace
a show for peace -a show for Bethlehem
More than 10 years ago, from 2006 to 2007, Agricola de Cologne produced an exhibition of self-portraits of artists, with which they set the flag for peace, and through reference to Bethlehem, a multi-symbolic place in human history Birth of Jesus is of particular importance, especially for peace between Palestinians and Israelis. This exhibition, which has become a memorial, is today more up to date than ever before. With this humanitarian context, the exhibition was in Palestine, Poland, Italy and Argentina
-> shown : // Self portrait – a show for Bethlehem – a show for peace

: // self ~ imaging – artists against Populism & Intolerance

Unique in its kind by the inclusion of artists with various digital artistic media, the memorial is one of the The 7 Memorials for Humanity – a media art environment between 2010 and 2018 by the Cologne media artist / curator Wilfried Agricola de Cologne was launched and realized.
The memorial includes contributions from 100 international artists.

The 1 Minute Before 12 Memorial
states, that humanity is not mucvh time left to react on the destruction of the own living habitat. It includes following sub projects

The Rainforest Memorial
had its premiere in 2002 on the Internet. The subtitle – The 5 minutes to 12 memorial – says that the rainforest and thus the lung of our planet was at this time, but also long time before, highly endangered.

Contaminated Progress
is screening program of 20 artvideos – initiated 2019 for and support an initiative to work towards a plastic free environment.

Wake up! – Climate change!
The project to be published in 2020, 18 years after The Rain Forest Memorial is dealing with the phenomenon of the human made climate change and the basic question, will it be reversible or is it too late, already.

The Wake Up! Memorial
was initiated in 2015 by Wilfried Agricola de Cologne, in 2017 it became part of the global networking project – The W:OW Project – We Are One World – http://wow.engad.org – later that year it was transformed into “The Wake Up! Memorial”, and in 2018 it became corporate part of the media art context – “The 7 Memorials for Humanity – http://7mfh.a-virtual-memorial.org

A provisional statement
by Wilfried Agricola de Cologne

If art, particularly visual art, is not considered as a matter for its own sake, leaving the artist studio, entering the public space, reaching an audience, art is always political, at least in the actual sense of the meaning of the word “political”. As a communicating medium between the creator and the audience, art becomes subject and object of a public discussion generating public opinion. As a social context establishing communication between a sender (artist) and the audience (recipient), art always has a social and political relevance, independantly from the artistic intentions and the contents to be communicated.

As we perceive it in the Western culture, the phenomenology of art changed during the development of human civilization from a most restrictive, cultic and elitist matter to a mass phenomenon of these days, from an intimate dialogue with a deity until the nearly absolute democratization and anonymization of the current mass society.

The social character of art, respectively the “image” created by an artist was at the same time always also potentially propaganda, when it was ideogically (mis)used by potentates in order to take influence on the individual and the masses. In this way, neither art nor the artist were innocent. The (economically and conceptually) independant artist of the Western societies is a result of the 19th century, when the democratization of art began with the industrialization and its social impakt.

And in terms of a free and independent art, thus if art is not used as propaganda or otherwise ideologically restricted, the real intentions of an artist are rather secondary, while reaching the audience the art work is interpreted individually by each indiviual, nevertheless the messages of visual art are much more concret than non-visual art like music, the visual sense is representing the most prominent sense among the human senses, not only in an evolutionary sense.

The present exhibition to be planned is transporting a political message (see subtitle) pointing to fundamental human and democratic, social and cultural values.

While taking a look on the world map, it becomes obvious that the majority of the world population is not able to share these values, because their living conditions do not guarantee such values, like freedom of expression, freedom of the word, freedom of movement and other human rights, it seems to be rather like that, that human rights are valid only for the privileged (not only in the Western orientated democracies), while the human rights are withheld for all the others, especially the non-privileged (this is also good for the dramatically increasing number of non-privileged in the Western countries)

It is a fact, that the “selfportrait” belongs to the most substantial artistic fomats, because reflecting and critically interpreting oneself is requiring diving deeply into the artist’s own soul.

The “selfportrait” does not only show how the artists see themselves, but also how they would like to be seen by the others. Much more than in any other kind of art format, the artists’ portraits create an “image” of themselves, their own “corporate identity”. they show face “Here I am!”

Since this statement is written at the beginning of the realisation of the exhibition project, it cannot be finally concluded, whether and in which way the participating artists will place themselves conceptually into the context of this exhibition’s humanitarian message.

The exhibition will be featuring digital media only – photography, digital image, video, netart, soundart and textual statements.

The Wake-Up Memorial

://self~imaging against Populism and Itolerance
unique in its kind by including 100 artists using divers digital artistic media, the Memorial belongs to The 7 Memorials for Humanity – a media art environment, created and curated between 2010 and 2018 by the Cologne based media artist & curator- Wilfried Agricola de Cologne.

The Memorial is based on the participation of 100 international artists and their contributions

Rosary Solimanto, Barbara Hasenmüller, Magdalena Libero, Giovanni Libero, Marilena Karagkiozi, Jem Raid, Sandrine Deumier, Abdoul-Ganiou Dermani, Nacho Recio, Tim Riley & Georgia Elizey, Luca Nanini, Katina Bitsicas, Roland Wegerer, Olga Guse, WildFilm, Masa Hilcisin, Francesca Fini, Dee Hood, Ekanem Oku, Marie-Suzanne Nourdin, Ronit Coulson, Keaton Fox, Ralph Klewitz, Nenad Nedeljkov, Mohamed Thara, Thomas Lisle, Adrian Lis, Albert Bayona, Zlatko Cosic, Deyan Clement, Letitia Gaba, Samantha Harvey, Roberto Echen, Timo Kahlen, Jasenka Vukelić, Pablo Di Iorio, Wojciech Gilewicz, Liliana Piskorska, Mohammadhossain Maghsoudi, Cis Bakker, Alison Carmel Ramer, Silvana Dunat, Bojana Knezevic, Kateryna Bortsova, Monika Zywer, Ahmet Kavas, Tim Riley & Georgia Elizey, Muhammad Fajar Shidiq, WildFilm, Chris Joseph, Christian Immonen, Humberto Ramirez, Christian Rupp, Michael Lazar, Petra Paul, Joanna Shuks, Maria Elena Danelli, Susanne Pillmann, Christine Bachmann, Cezary Ostrowski, Monika K. Adler, Waalko Dingemans, Allison Flom, Marion Musch, Avi Dabach, Shelley Jordon, Jens Hauspurg, R.S Holtkamp, Oleksiy Gudzovskyy, Amir Kabir Jabbari, Hagen Klennert, David R. Burns, Mladen Bundalo and Lucie Bundalo, Shahar Marcus, Rinus Groenendaal, Reinhard Hölker, Abdoul-Ganiou Dermani, Vince Briffa, Patrick Morarescu, Krzysztof Rynkiewicz, Isabel Pérez del Pulgar, Nouran Sherif & Muhammad Taymour, Neil Ira Needleman, Nico Winz, Lisi Prada, Johannes Gérard, Ananthakrishnan.B, Stephen Chen, Carla Della Beffa, My Name Is Scot, Raimon Sibilo, Jana Wisniewski, Roy Harary, Juan Matias Musa, Karin Till, Ezra Wube, Ausin Sainz, Frances Raboen, Daniel Wechsler, Bruce Eves, YunTing Tsai, Dova Cahan, Sean Burn, Manasak Khlongchainan, Badr El Hammami, Gil & Moti, Barry Douglas Smylie, Shivkumar K V, Salome Mc, Wrik Mead, Ralph Klewitz, Marlieke Overmeer, Anna Ursyn, Jacqueline Then, Joseph Nechvatal