About the book

How do we get out of this crisis? This is the question that Ramsey Nasr, one of the Netherlands’ most versatile artists, asks himself.

Nasr concludes that the pandemic has exposed what, for a long time, we have refused to see: our political and economic systems have corroded the foundations of Western society. In an extremely personal and at the same time rational plea, Nasr dissects the corona and climate crises as two disasters that are in fact connected with each other. Step by step, he questions our entire Western way of life. Building on artists like Boccaccio, Rilke and Van Gogh, Nasr makes a plea to radically reconsider our place on earth and our idea of happiness, not as some woolly ideal, but purely out of self-preservation.

As such, The Foundations is, besides a penetrating cry from the heart, a political call to rebellion.