Michelangelo Pistoletto – The Third Paradise

Rebirth-Day: the first worldwide day of rebirth

A great celebration throughout the world—a vital, living, breathing symbol of a new beginning.

December 21st, the winter solstice in the northern hemisphere and the summer solstice in the Southern, is a day celebrated by mankind since time immemorial. A fateful “end of the world” connotation, as widespread as it is unfounded, has been attributed to this day in 2012, proposing a theme that is recurrent in mythologies and religions as well as in the literature of fantasy and science fiction.

All imaginative factors aside, this date can take on a symbolic meaning, as it effectively corresponds to a climactic phase of human history. We are progressing steadily toward an inevitable collapse—the science is there to prove it.

The whole of human society is now in the reckoning and so must face a historic transition, a complete change.

Humanity has gone through two paradises. The first, in which it integrated fully with nature; the second, in which it expanded into an artificial world of its own, which grew until it came into conflict with the natural world. It is time to begin the third stage, in which humanity will reconcile and unite nature and artifice, creating a new balance at every level and in every area of society: “an evolutionary step in which the human intelligence finds ways to live in harmony with the intelligence of nature” (Michelangelo Pistoletto).

A new perspective opens up that involves everyone, without exception, in the daily effort to implement the process of rebirth—each according to his or her abilities and possibilities.

Cittadellarte – Fondazione Pistoletto invites everyone to join the celebration on 21 December 2012, all you have to do is meet in streets and squares all over the world, and on the Web, to take part in the great inaugural celebration of the Third Paradise.

If you are interested in joining the celebration, you can find more information  at http://www.rebirth-day.org/eng/index.htm

By Luis Bravo

Luis Bravo is a Business Management student at Universidad Iberoamericana in Puebla, México. He was an exchange student at Leuphana Universität, doing a 3-months Internship at Cultura21 in the framework of the Leuphana Plus Program, and continues to collaborate with Cultura21.