I believe that every society needs responsible aesthetic interventions in the public sphere, to maintain a sense of connection to the spaces we inhabit, but also ourselves and each other.

Through the “KOKO” character (easily removed if desired) I have discretely and intuitively marked the presence of playful, open-ended unity where I see it needed, allowing it to change meaning depending on what environment it´s communicating with. Sometimes it´s a purely aesthetic addition to a composition of elements, sometimes a humorous “blink”, sometimes an attention-drawer to something I consider of importance, sometimes an attempt to heal a sense of hopelessness and artificiality, sometimes all at once.

In the context of the political campaigns for the national elections of 2014, I used “KOKO” as a poetic reminder of the unity behind all politics – both in the sense of shared identifications with the destructive idea that we can only define ourselves in opposition to something else, and the deeper truth that underneath all divergence, we are One.

The idea to paint a burnt down car came from my friends dunderdan, poet and rapper, and Sir Tom Foolery, artist/painter from the US, as we were walking by a newly burnt car near my home. Inviting also artist/painter Luc Gatwa, we painted the bird Phoenix rising from the ashes, on top of a myriad of patterns and symbolisms, as a reminder of the inherent opportunity of growth and transformation in all destruction.