The Global Art Project: The Dragonfly

by Miki Kashtan

For years I've been quoting Sharif Abdullah (at left) and referring people to his book Creating a World that Works for All. 

He recently posted a blog entry in which he describes a fictional global cooperation project that touched me so much that I want to share it with those who read my blog and may not know of his. 

Here are the first few paragraphs:

The Global Art Project:  The Dragonfly  

[Most of the time, my topics are deadly serious.  However, that’s not the only kind of writing I do.  I’d like to share a piece I wrote awhile ago, the seriousness hidden inside the humor.  It’s actually based on a dream!  It was nice waking with a smile on my face, having dreamt this!]  


THE DRAGONFLY   

Imagine a delicate dragonfly, with glass wings, a metal body and spindly metal legs.  It’s thin, outstretched wings shimmer iridescence in the sunlight.

Now, imagine this dragonfly 100 miles long and 75 miles wide.  You see it above you in the sky, because it’s in low Earth orbit.  The first global work of art.

What did it take to create the dragonfly?

All it took total human cooperation.  All of the nations of the Earth had to come to consensus.  It took most of the productive output of humanity for 50 years.  For decades, all the people of the Earth had to work on Project Dragonfly.

All of the money, every penny of it, that was spent on killing and oppressing other humans was diverted to Project Dragonfly.  (This provided more than enough money for several dragonflies.)

Read the rest here.