Heart of Peace
This was never just a sculpture.
It 600’ high living declaration.
A place where people could step out of conflict…
out of history…
out of everything that keeps dividing us…
…and remember what it feels like to have a heart.
Years ago, this vision took form as The Heart of Peace.
An island.
A gathering place.
A symbol large enough to be seen…
and felt…
by the entire world.
This wasn’t created in isolation.
These renderings and concepts were developed in direct collaboration
with leadership in Abu Dhabi…
including members of the royal family
and the Minister of Culture and Tourism.
This vision was explored, refined, and taken seriously
at the level of a nation.
Long before tools made it easy to generate images like this…
this was already being imagined… shaped… and brought toward reality.
Together with Claes Nobel,
I traveled to Abu Dhabi many times…
Carrying a question that still lives in me:
What would it take to build something
that reminds humanity
of who we are beyond fear, beyond division, beyond war?
The answer wasn’t policy.
It wasn’t strategy.
It was something far older.
Art.
For over 30,000 years, art has been the way human beings
carry what matters most…
across generations…
across cultures…
across time.
The Heart of Peace was meant to be that kind of symbol.
A place people would come to:
To reconnect.
To breathe.
To remember love, respect, and meaning.
To feel part of something larger than themselves.
A place that says, without words:
This is who we are capable of being.
It has not been built.
Not yet.
And still…
nothing about it feels finished.
Because the need for it hasn’t gone away.
If anything… it has grown louder.
Every war…
every division…
every moment where we forget each other…
points back to the same truth:
Peace is not something we negotiate.
It is something we remember.
Everything I create…
every painting…
every sculpture…
every space…
comes from the same place as this vision.
Remembrance.
And maybe now…
more than ever…
the world is ready.
