CONNECT VI by the artist Anthony Gormley will be sold on behalf of the Gormley Studio with all proceeds to benefit the Council for At-Risk Academics (CARA) non-profit organisation. CARA has a rich history; originally founded in 1933 as a response to the Nazi’s expulsion of academics from German universities.
Since then, the non-profit organisation has helped countless academics escape prosecution across the globe. CARA aids persecuted individuals by assisting them gain employment in higher-education institutions in the UK. This allows them to continue their research and build new lives within these networks. The NGO’s end goal is to enable this group to return to their countries of origin so that they may help rebuild their recovering countries. CARA operates on a non-exclusionary basis, defining an academic as ‘someone who has held a post as a lecturer and/or researcher in a higher education institution or equivalent. CARA does not distinguish between seniority, gender or discipline.’i
The present work CONTECT VI reflects one of the charity’s goals – the development of interpersonal and institutional links on an international level. Two silhouettes coalesce on the blank picture plane. Earth-hued roots connect them, as if hinting both at existing and potential growth, and as such, to greater networks of human connectivity. In this way, CONNECT VI becomes a visual metaphor for CARA’s work; creating links between academic institutions across the globe in order to safeguard the world’s higher-education institutions, and the education they provide to future generations.
