BALANCE IN THE UNIVERSE by Shigeru Ito in Barcelona

RE-VISUALIZE “BALANCE” When I search on Google for the word “Balance”, it always shows images of a weighing scale or similar, a structure which holds two things and on equal sides, without much movement. At the same time, I hear many times how important it is to keep balance in our life. If this understanding of balance is to show in our life, we are to hardly move from where we are. But when I think of life, we are always moving and changing. We have good times and bad times. Sometimes happy, sometimes sad. Sometimes with others, sometime by ourselves. We speak and we listen, we walk and then stand, we open and we close, we work and we play. Always on the move. So here I try to visualize the universal balance that celebrates movement and change in all shapes and direction. We all should find our way to balance. Let’s begin with side view then move to top view and add movement (eg. “Happy” to “Sad”). It looks like “Taichi” symbol which is also known as “Balance” in Chinese Taoism, but it looks rotating in the same place again and again. It is still not showing how our life work. Take a look from side view again and you see spiral that even you come back to the same side as before, it’s not the same point as our perspective changed, or time passed etc…