Aux Armes Citoyens
This project looks at the celebration of national days in different European states. My fascination for national days came from seeing the display of military forces in different countries in Europe who lived peacefully together. Through my work I understand them as a tool of soft power. But these enactments of military power are also held within a highly controlled and surveilled setting, in which states decide how to convey a message to their citizens. Insofar, these events are blurring the line between reality and fiction, between performing power and exerting it.
“Aux armes citoyens” (To arms, citizens) is an excerpt of the French national anthem, which is sung on the French national day, where Europe’s oldest military parade is held in Paris. Like the anthem, national days are a characteristic of the nation itself and an important occasion to convey an idea of collective identity, which follows political agendas. Victory day in Russia, for an example, has been given an ever-growing importance in the last two decades, recontextualizing the suffering through the World War II and the victory over Nazi Germany into the state’s imperialist agenda.
But national days that don’t rely on military parades also try to convey a message. Like my native Germany, where some years ago the tradition of planting trees on the day of German reunification was started. What or who a nation celebrates determines how it sees itself, and how it tries to present itself to the rest of the world.