Remaking passports: Visual thought in the debate on multiculturalism
Secondary Research
Fig. 1 Visual Culture Reader’s cover by Nicholas Mirzoeff.
'The visual culture reader' is a compilation of literature encompassing assorted criticisms and histories from diverse sources. The diversity of topics that are discussed in the text focuses my interests related to gender perspectives, communication theory, identity, and transculture. Nestor Garcia Canclini, in her report ‘Remaking passports: Visual thought in the debate on multiculturalism’ speaks of Latin American culture and how globalisation in art and the artist is born. The construction of nationality through culture is a contemporary challenge due to economic and symbolic transnationalisation. Appadurai (1990) provides five reasons for this:
1 the population movements of emigrants, tourists, refugees, exiles and foreign workers; 2 the flows produced by technologies and transnational corporations; 3 the exchanges of multinational financiers; 4 the repertoires of images and information distributed throughout the planet by newspapers, magazines and television channels; 5 the ideological models representative of what one might call Western modernity: concepts of democracy, liberty, wellbeing and human rights, which transcend the definitions of particular identities.
As I am able to contextualise the notion of a universal language, studies related to global theory and culture such as this are invaluable at informing my project’s goals and to position my work in a more manageable manner. Instead of attempting to create a global language, to realise that I need to work within the confines that communicating a universal message to a global audience is impossible, I am better situated to focus on creating a message that is understood by as many people as possible.
Bibliography
Canclini, N.G. (1994) ‘Remaking passports: Visual thought in the debate on multiculturalism’, pp. 374-381. In: Mirzoeff, N., (2003) The visual culture reader. 2nd edn. London: Taylor & Francis.
Images
Fig. 1 - Visual Culture Reader’s cover by Nicholas Mirzoeff. [Online image] Available at: www.nicholasmirzoeff.com/O2012/wp-content/uploads/2012/07/VCR3-Cover.jpg. [Accessed: 18 April 2016]