Today I ordered Europe's Final Countdown as a vinyl single. I'll use it for a work titled The Final Countdown for the European Values (Music for Refugees).

We're leaving together / But still it's farewell / And maybe we'll come back / To earth, who can tell? / I guess there is no one to blame / We're leaving ground (leaving ground) / Will things ever be the same again? / It's the final countdown / The final countdown / Oh! / We're heading for Venus (the EU) / And still we stand tall / 'Cause maybe they've seen us (the coast guard) / And welcome us all, yeah / With so many light years to go / And things to be found (to be lost) / I'm sure that we'll all miss her so.

Things I'm doing now at the studio: Buying shoe laces with led lights, making improvised climbing shoes for climbing border fences, applying a World Passport from the World Government, drawing hooks, preparing work sheets for the School of Capitalism, making my kids to color letters, ordering some rolls of concertina razor wire, planning the Border Field Trip 2 to Lesbos and the Balkan Peninsula, buying beer cans for a sculpture.

This week my painting Syria Beheaded will be exhibited at Love & Anarchy - the 29th Helsinki International Film Festival. It's the apt context for the work which is a poster of a fictional movie.

Several years ago, I got interested in the famous Ghanaian hand painted film posters and later I got an idea of a series of history paintings, posters of fictional films of important events after the Cold War. I've been trying to find funding for the project during a couple of years but without success and finally I decided to make one. If I sell this work, I'll invest all the profit in the larger series.

Production team

Painters: Annang Nortey and Eric Sojay 

Graphic designer: Niina Rinne

Producer in Ghana: Gudrun F. Widlok

I've been working with the border theme the past days after my trip to North Africa. I begin to know almost everything about razor tapes and concertina wires.

The Spanish company European Security Fencing has provided the razors for the border fortresses of the Spanish exclaves Ceuta and Melilla but also for the Hungarian fence at their Serbian border. The ESF CEO says that the blades are not aimed to hurt anyone but just to cause psychological and visual impact. Many immigrants and refugees have been seriously injured by the border fences.

Concertina is a type of razor wire  that is formed in large coils which can be expanded like a concertina, which is a accordion like musical instrument. The concertina wire (Model 22 of European Security Fencing) plays the Anthem of the European Union, Ode to Joy.

All men become brothers

Where your tender wing lingers.

Be embraced, millions!

This kiss to the entire world!

Brothers, above the starry canopy

Must a loving Father reside.

(…)

Happy, as his suns fly

Across Heaven's splendid map,

Run, brothers, along your path

Joyfully, as a hero to victory.

(…)

Endure courageously, millions!

Endure for the better world!

There above the starry canopy

A great God will reward.

(...) 

Escape the tyrants’ chains,

Generosity also to the villain,

Hope upon the deathbeds,

Mercy from the high court!

The dead, too, shall live!

Brothers, drink and chime in,

All sinners shall be forgiven,

And hell shall be no more.