Global Culture

Without having the nurturing care of their mother culture or the strong support of their community, the children of globalization are usually left alone struggling to figure out who they really are and what alliances they follow, often times falling on the side of hyper-marketing campaigns that spread throughout the globe without consideration for the cultural bastards they leave behind.

An attempt to witness this effect is now documented by the book “Bastard. Choose my identity” (see sidebar) and its companion website, which describes the project:

The idea behind BASTARD was to bring together photographers, writers, illustrators, graphic designers, musicians and typographers to create a solid and unique book that also functions as a work of art. The profoundly personal impressions of the authors and artists [...] shed light on our modern culture — on daily life, on the themes of change and continuity, and on the pervasive branding that is all around us. We must define who we are, be able to form both national and personal identities for ourselves, and in this journey we may come to see that globalization is not a completely negative force. Instead, the trend and phenomenon of globalization offers us proof that we are living in an era as exciting as one could imagine. Searching to define cultural identity and cultural bastarding, Christian Ernst, Lars Harmsen and Andr√© R√∂sler traveled to various hot spots highlighting the globalization trend. Writers with personal histories of emigration contributed their stories and poems