Oil on Canvas
33x34cm
 
In 414 BC, the Greek comic dramatist, Aristophanes, wrote ´The Birds´ - a political fantasy about two Athenians, fed up with taxes, over regulation and life in the city. The two set out to find a better place to live. They end up negotiating with the leader of the birds to establish a ‘Cloud Cuckoo Land’ in the sky.
 
‘Cloud Cuckoo Land’ has since been used as an expression meaning a state of absurdly over optimistic fantasy or an unrealistically idealistic state. Someone said to live in ‘Cloud Cuckoo Land’ thinks that things that are completely impossible might happen. Someone seen as ‘crazy’ by most but also exhibits cleverness at times in ways no one else would think of.
This expression has entered the language of politics as well. It is used to dismiss calls for politic change as pure fantasy and naive. Margaret Thatcher famously used this phrase in a speech in 1987, saying that anyone who thinks the ANC is going to run the government in South Africa is living in ‘Cloud Cuckoo Land’. Seven years later, the ANC, led by Nelson Mandela, won the first election in post-apartheid South Africa.
Recent events have shown us the magnitude of how our current system is failing and unprepared for the future. It showed us how fragile our democracies really are (those of us that have them). The society we live in is headed for a massive change in many ways and no one really knows what will happen. In times of great change, the forces of good and evil fight to determine the future.
Will you help build the next Cloud Cuckoo Land or just try to shelter yourself and hope the forces of evil aren’t too strong?
 
From ´The Birds´- Leader of the chorus: Who are they? From what country? EPOPS: Strangers, who have come from Greece, the land of the wise. LEADER OF THE CHORUS: And what fate has led them hither to the land of the birds? EPOPS: Their love for you and their wish to share your kind of life; to dwell and remain with you always. LEADER OF THE CHORUS: Indeed, and what are their plans? EPOPS: They are wonderful, incredible, unheard of. LEADER OF THE CHORUS: Why, do they think to see some advantage that determines them to settle here? Are they hoping with our help to triumph over their foes or to be useful to their friends? EPOPS: They speak of benefits so great it is impossible either to describe or conceive them.. LEADER OF THE CHORUS: Are they mad? EPOPS: They are the sanest people in the world. Let yourself be cuckoo.