Christian Narkiewicz-Laine
Photo by Gökcen Tuncer
Christian Narkiewicz-Laine is a Finnish-American-Lithuanian activist architect whose struggle for justice, democracy, peace and social change is lasting both in architectural area and contemporary art world. While he produces architectural designs that understands the real purpose of housing and values the need of humanity and urban life rather than only being tied to capital market, he also contributes to art world with his sculptors, paintings and poems which usually contains highly-charged criticism against wars, injustice and undemocratic policies. His artistic style usually incorporates Found Object (Objet Trouve) which is a recreation process of the daily objects such as recyclables, broken pottery, machine parts, collage with photographs that are not traditionally used as art materials. According to Narkiewicz-Laine the use of non-traditional materials in art is really part of the necessary intellectualization process of art.”I believe that art must challenge to the viewer, not just purely entertain” he says.
For him, an artist must have a very developed sense of intellectual understanding of the universe and in this interview he told about his own story and ideas about the quadrangle of activism, art, world order and architectural responsibilities.
Achtung Kunst! 