ADAD Sem 2 - Assessment 2
Contemporary art and design often looks at the idea of constructed binaries, such as man/woman, soft/hard, straight/gay, dirty/clean, organic/synthetic. Considering the history of these ‘pairs’, how can art and design interrogate these binaries and offers new insights?
The chronicle of the binary between cultural appropriation and appreciation can be dated back to thousands of years, ever since colonialists adopted conducts from traditional cultures, and it has now spread across the globe. However, within contemporary society, the perpetuation of this issue has increased more than ever due to social media and overall pop culture.
Cultural appropriation happens when a dominant culture takes things from another culture that is undergoing oppression, however this delicate issue has been confused for cultural appreciation or exchange, however, this appreciation and exchange are different as there is no supremacy involved. For example, tea, gunpowder and pasta have been shared between different cultures throughout history. These ‘borrowings’ aren’t the same as cultural appropriation, because they don’t involve power. When different cultures come together on an equal footing, exchange and appreciation happens. But when dominant groups take from an oppressed group without due recognition, we’re dealing with appropriation.1 Furthermore, it creates stereotypes such as when these dominant cultures dress as other cultures for Halloween, reducing something of cultural significance to a costume for fun.
Nowadays, society is seeing appropriation through our screens on social media, for example due to heavily publicised events that encourage this adoption of customs such as Coachella and The Color Run, as I explored in my last assessment. Social media has proved to be an essential part of people’s everyday lives recently. The world turns to social media for communicating, keeping up with news and events, subduing boredom, marketing etc.2 There has been this spamming of appropriation ever since social media encapsulated humanity’s daily routine, and whilst many people critique the issue - not much is being done. This form of domination over smaller cultures has become so engrained into how cultures interact that there seems to be no way to end this adoption, especially since the perpetuators don’t see how it isn’t cultural appreciation or exchange.
In order to understand how this issue can be translated into art and design, I started researching practitioners that did so, and I found an artist named Shannon Wright. Wright is an artist that comments on how ‘dominant cultures’ can take things from another culture that is experiencing oppression. She chooses to comment on the matter through graphic design, one of her most noticed works being Shared or Stolen: An Examination of Cultural Appropriation.3 She incorporates her graphic design talent and knowledge of how Western society appropriating elements of her culture to make a banner that illustratively depicts this naive oppression. Although my first instinct was to use acrylic paints and canvas for this assessment, her digital designs encouraged me to also explore that area of creating works. However, soon after experimenting there, I wanted to delve more into the area of social media criticisms as it relates more to current society. This pervasive force in our social lives has unsurprisingly become the subject of many contemporary artworks. My inspiration came from the works of Hannah Hill a.k.a ‘Hanecdote’ on Instagram, who uses the medium of needlepoint work as a form of social media symbolism.4 A recurring theme in her work is the representation of contemporary social issues framed within the screen of an iPhone. She comments on gender, body and racial issues within contemporary society through an iPhone template, as social media perpetuates these issues the most. Therefore, I thought of a way in which I could illustrate the same message.
Since social media is a primary form spreading information, a lot of influencers on the platform post images of themselves appropriating other cultures, not that they are doing so intentionally, but a lack of true understanding (appreciation) is evident. Therefore, my poster shows a regular ‘Explore’ page on Instagram as that represents the fastest way of finding images on the platform, with each square having someone adopting another culture inappropriately. The overlay image is how I wish for us to deal with the issue, to report it and continue speaking up about it even though the issue doesn’t seem to be subduing – unless we constantly express ourselves. The options on Instagram that allow this commenting is through reporting the content for being ‘inappropriate’ or for being ‘spam’. This is exactly what’s happening with this form of appropriation, it’s being spammed for society to constantly be observing and it needs to be criticised. I liked continuing the idea of having a poster to advertise a critique on society like with Assessment 1, now instead expanding the issue to show how it’s actual influence, through using existing images and how we can speak up about it. If this was to be in a real world context, I imagine it being plastered in bulk across a street wall - I’ve seen many practitioners utilise this technique as a dramatic form of advertising.
(Sorry Tumblr won’t let me annotate references properly with an Index)
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1 “Why cultural appropriation isn’t cool”, in Au.reachout.com, , 2017, <https://au.reachout.com/articles/why-cultural-appropriation-isnt-cool> [accessed 14 September 2018].
2 “Six contemporary artists making a statement about social media — Acclaim Magazine”, in Acclaim Magazine, , 2017, <https://acclaimmag.com/art/six-contemporary-artists-making-a-statement-about-social-media/#5> [accessed 14 September 2018].
3 S Wright, “Shannon Wright”, in Shannondrewthis.tumblr.com, , 2016, <http://shannondrewthis.tumblr.com/post/134820711632/some-time-ago-i-did-a-piece-for-ink-magazine> [accessed 9 September 2018].
4 H Hill, “Hannah Hill (@hanecdote) • Instagram photos and videos”, in Instagram.com, <https://www.instagram.com/hanecdote/?hl=en> [accessed 15 September 2018].
