2016  Book object
display case, 50 × 50 × 170 cm
photographies, 40 × 60 cm

The World We Live In, originally conceived by Lincoln Barnett for Time Life Magazine and published in Germany by Knaur, tells the natural history of the world, from the genesis of the planets to the present. Its lush illustrations are inscribed into the visual memory of a whole generation. As a children we were torn between fascination and disgust. There were pages we could only look at for a short while, but which we kept going back to, with pictures called “Tyrannosaurus Rex mauls a herbivore” or “desert rat escapes from a snake.” The World We Live In not only aspired to make the cutting-edge scientific knowledge of the time comprehensible to everyone. It also incidentally told the story of “eat or be eaten” and conveyed what was still a completely intact anthropocentric world view. It was absolutely clear who was meant by the “We” in the title, and it was time to submit this to a fundamental revision.