Imagine if you could see all the skies in the world at once! Some crystal-clear, some filled with smog, some cloudless, come cloudy, some showing sunrises, some showing sunsets.
One World Sky is a collaborative and evolving art piece, designed and coordinated by artist Drue Kataoka. On a digital canvas created from photos of the sky submitted from all over the world, Drue presents the face of a woman giving birth—a face filled with pain but also joy and optimism, a face holding the future of humanity. The world canvas of skies will showcase the diversity and yet unity of humanity amidst joy, sorrow and above all—hope.
The sky is the same all over the world, yet different everywhere. Drue arranges the pieces according to the similarity of the sky textures and colors, and the artistic message they convey. Interestingly, some of the most geographically distant places look most visually similar. So the sky canvas creates a new global map—one where Stanford, California is next to Alexandria, Egypt and Chicago , Illinois is next to a sky over the Greek island of Paros. To illustrate that, Drue has also created a "map" companion to the artwork, which shows what city and country each sky piece in One World Sky came from.
The artwork was inspired by looking at the sky, and triggered by an encounter Drue had with Sarah Brown, wife of former British pm Gordon Brown and global patron the White Ribbon Alliance, a foundation that supports maternal health in developing countries. Childbirth is the leading cause of death for women in many developing countries—not AIDS, not heart disease, not cancer or war. This is a shocking fact that Drue wanted to raise awareness about with this work of art.
Sarah Brown submitted the first piece of the sky, and the remaining first set of sky photos were taken by Drue's friends all over the world—from technologists and business people to social entrepreneurs and artists.
One of the biggest, brightest pieces of the sky was taken by South African AIDS orphans—children who have lost their mothers-- from the Two Sisters charity in RSA, an organization run by former South African anti-apartheid freedom fighter Patrick Chamusso.
One World Sky was first debuted during Drue's talk in January this year at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland and the audience was asked to participate by submitting their photos.
The One World Sky project website officially launched on March 8, 2011 in celebration of the 100th anniversary of International Women's Day.
The One World Sky global canvas will be constantly updated and evolving. Drue will be adding the new photos to new canvases, a nd the latest canvas will always be showcased on this page, together with all preceding canvases.
Come back again soon to see the latest photos!
Drue invites everybody to send their digital photo of the sky at worldskyart@gmail.com, with the location over which they were taken (city + country) and the name of the submitter in the message Subject. In the email message Body, you are welcome (but not required) to share your thoughts about the sky and/or global motherhood.
Make a difference -- donate to the White Ribbon Alliance for Safe Motherhood*
