Louwrien Wijers in Pirate Pavilion

My pigeons sat on my rabbits’ backs, and both were happy. The Dalai Lama laughed happily when I said that Joseph Beuys wanted to turn politics into art. “The German artist is right,” he laughed. But bombs are falling all around us once again; people are experiencing what I experienced on 24 March 1945, when the British dropped a bomb on our house. I woke up, glass shards all over my bed, the tattered lace curtains blowing inwards through the broken window. Downstairs, I saw rubble, debris everywhere. Why are we doing this all over again? Why not realise my long-held dream of a ‘Saint Society’?

I’m taking a huge step towards realising the ‘Saint Society’ by linking ‘Global Basic Income’ to ‘e-democracy’. Across borders, people choose their own paths and make their new world. This is how a global society that truly ‘lives together’ grows. Being together, mutual compassion, collectively planning the next step, everyone can afford to eat, no one goes to bed hungry. We can think peacefully about what tomorrow looks like, how it can be shaped by everyone’s talents. Creativity is our true capital, quite literally.

Stanislav Menshikov, Russian economist, Robert Rauschenberg, American artist, David Bohm, scientist, the Dalai Lama, spiritual leader, all sat down together for Panel1 at the Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam in September 1990. Their subject: the world of tomorrow.

In Panel2, scientist Ilya Prigogine articulated with great lucidity, “The traditional idea of civilisation was based on violence. The great opportunity of our time is to build up a society in which people can participate in culture. Non-linear science permits creativity and leads to self-organisation. The change is absolutely radical.”

After four days, Raimon Panikkar, philosopher and theologian, told Panel5: “Would you agree that art is not the monopoly of artists, but that art is our real self. The making of art is a dimension of a human being, which has been neglected in our education. I do believe that humans could not survive without art. Competitive society is a natural outcome of the loss of the artistic dimension.”

Economist H.J. Witteveen concluded, “Very many people are still living in great poverty. How can that be overcome? Only with support of the voters, they must sympathize with the poor. International co-operation has to be expanded. In reality national sovereignty doesn’t exist anymore.”

I am elaborating that image of one world, and of e-democracy , with digital ‘big thinker’ Audrey Tang, Minister of Digital Affairs in Taiwan. The subject of the discussion on 23 September is the development of the global society as a work of art. A conversation that will continue over supper with Egon Hanfstingl and SMAK director Philippe van Cauteren, who are no strangers to this concept thanks to their long-standing work with Joseph Beuys.