2008Pink State - The Arido Rosso Project
In 2008 the Sahara Desert would be included in the Pink State project. Despite a broken leg (in pink plaster!) Evaristti and his team ventured out into the desert. With his base in a Bedouin camp, he searched a larger area and found his sandbank at a place where the infinitely large landscape of the Sahara just becomes visible and Evaristti could carry out some colour tests in the sand. The empheralness of the Pink State project was particularly clear here. Half of the sand had been blown away by the following day. But this very empheralness is vital for the Pink State concept. In acknowledgement of the conflicts resulting from the demand for a right to a specific piece of land, Pink State determines the expiry date of its existence from the start. The land reclamation therefore becomes only for a brief moment a materialisation of something bigger, that is to say the spirit of Pink State as a “state of mind” as opposed to a geographically-delimited area that can become a subject of conflict. Besides the territory itself, a white camel and some sheep were also annexed into the project and painted pink. It was thought-provoking for Evaristti that even though the whole project of the Pink State is about humanity, nature protection and atonement, the pink camel was not initially accepted when it returned to its flock.
