You Are Here — Dave Loewenstein

Created for Art in the Loop along the KC Streetcar route, this image shows the earth as it dips down from above with North America at the center. For many, it will look upside down with north at the bottom and south at the top. Viewing the planet from this uncharacteristic angle presents the possibility of reorienting ourselves to the place we all live without the assumptions and regional discriminations that come with national borders and notions of south and north that have been hard wired into nearly all modern images of earth. An earlier version of this idea became the centerpiece for the mural, Tiempo de la Tierra, and to the right is a spraypaint stencil I made in 1992 for Earth Day that first combined the text You Are Here with an image of the planet.