From the art exhibit The Persistence of History, three pieces
of artwork that I found could be tied to my semester project topic or themes
are Roger Shimomura’s American Guardian,
Gaku Tsutaja’s, The Project to Dismantle
the Enola Gay, and Michael Oatman’s, F(armed.
American
Guardian
Roger Shimomura, American Guardian 2008
Roger Shimomura illustrates life
for Japanese-Americans during WWII by showing a sense of one of the internment
camps. Shimomura uses the illustration of a soldier, a child, the barbed wire
guarded fences and the feeling of isolation. The message that he tries to
convey is that no one was safe during this time and that because of your
heritage and what you looked like you were segregated and treated differently than
everyone else. The way Shimomura addresses socio-political aspect of the Japanese-American
internment camps is by showing the soldier pointing his gun at the little boy
who is just playing around and trying to make the best of the situation he was
forced into. This artwork fits inside a political and capitalist structure
because it is hinting at who is at fault, but does not outright say it. We
don’t verbally or physically know the race of the little boy or the soldier,
but anyone who comes across the subject of the internment camps know who and
what race they are. And so, it is criticizing the internment camps and the
policy that the government upheld during this time without pointing fingers.
Shimomura
illustrates one theme that connects to my semester project and that is powerlessness
and feeling confined. Shimomura’s American Guardian illustrates what it felt
like to be a Japanese-American during WWII and how even the young were targeted
to be the enemy of the nation without any real proof. This is the same with all
the animals and ecosystems in the ocean. Oil pollution traps them in a bubble
of toxic waste and the animals have done nothing to deserve that suffering.
Shimomura also says that the little boy in the picture grows up to wear the
same uniform as the soldier who points his gun at him. This shows the
powerlessness he felt that he is stuck in a cycle that cannot be broken because
now along with him suffering the trauma of being intermediated, now he is
causing pain. This is similar to the marine animals who survive the oil
pollution. They then have to live the rest of their lives with this toxin in
their system and always surrounding them.
The
Project to Dismantle the Enola Gay
Gaku Tsutaja, The Project to Dismantle the Enola Gay 2018
Gaku Tsutaja’s
project The Project to Dismantle the
Enola Gay, demonstrates how the lives of the people living in Hiroshima
were completely uplifted or ended because of the Enola Gay. Tsutaja uses the
images of the Enola Gay plane, tree branches and nests and parakeets to
illustrate her message. She is trying to say that the tree branches and the
decay of what was once full of life and the home of race of people is now
destroyed by this one simple object. She is able to use her piece in a
political and capitalist structure because she does not outright illustrate her
message. It takes a deeper understanding of what each element symbolizes and if
not everyone understands the importance of each symbol or where they derive
from they would not understand her message.
Tsutaja’s
project, has one outstanding theme that connects to my project, immigration and
murder of a community. Oil is a substance that is very toxic to many marine
life and ecosystem and when spilled into the ocean it attacks those systems.
Many of which dies and those that do survive are forever altered and never can
go back to how they once were. On top of that many marine life, because they
are so delicate and are not used to the compound elements within oil instantly
die or have to migrate to a different environment in order to survive. Their
lives are forever changed because of the actions of oil companies and even us
as humans because we depend so much on this substance that can kill even us.
This is similar to Tsutaja’s message also because atomic bombs are not only
harmful to our “enemies” but also to us the ones who fire them.
F(armed)
Michael Oatman, F(armed) 2016
In Michael Oatman’s, F(armed), illustrates how new
technologies from farming connect to how we use and find natural resources.
Oatman challenges socio-political subjects by making a connection to his life
and how these materials affect him and can affect others. He is able to show
his artwork in a political and capitalist structure while critiquing it by
showing history and how it is still relevant to society today. He makes it relevant
to us as individuals so that we are inspired by the artwork, but at the same
time he criticizes the companies and foundation of our history that has lead us
to where we are today.
One quote from
Seeing Power that I connect to my project was in chapter 3, “But they also
accommodate within them an incredibly large set of forms…But just because these
sources of meaning are proliferating doesn’t mean that they’re intangible-if we
learn to identify the infrastructures in which they exist, we can challenge
their impact-and change ourselves” (60). People are usually blinded by what
corporations want us to see and so we never really look into the corruption or
what the truth is. If more people understand the truth behind what is being
sold to us, we would not be mindless followers, we would be intellectual beings
that challenge the wrongs of society. This is a connection to Shimomura American Guardian because many people
today claim that the internment camps never happened and that it is not a part
of our history. However, it did happen and it changed hundreds of people lives
because of something they had no control over. Similarly, to my semester
project about oil pollution. These marine animals have no control over what
happens to them and many people don’t care and turn a blind eye to them. These
big oil corporations have so much money and so much power and we allow them to
because we believe that we need oil fuel and that without it we can’t continue
to live the lives we have now, and that is false.
Another quote that
I found every compelling was in Seeing Power Chapter 7, “While watching the Victorian
Stroll, we realize that the United Victorian Workers are not taking us back in
time, so much as demonstrating that history is not moving” (150). In Tsutaja’s
project The Project to Dismantle the
Enola Gay, an underlying theme is fear and how history strives fear into
present day. Everyday there is a fear of a nuclear attack or war because if the
delicate balance of “piece” within the different nations of the world.
Hiroshima suffered first had what an atomic bomb can do and we just keep
creating worse and more deadlier weapons, which we claim we will never use. Oil
pollution might not be as directly toxic to us humans as an atomic bomb, but we
still suffer from it just as much as all the marine animals and ecosystems. We
say we want to move to a better and brighter future, yet we refuse to let go of
the most toxic aspects of our lives. We can survive without oil, but we don’t
want to because that means giving up something from our lives that makes it
easier and more comfortable.
The third quote I
choose was from the Interventionists in the section, Anarchy in the Ruins:
dreaming the experimental university, “The future perfect-the ‘will have
been’-is the tense of the ghost, which will have returned. The ghost in this
case is precisely the imagined university that haunts the ruins of the
university as it is today” (115). We imagine what the future should be like and
try and reach it, but we never can because we refuse to change and are dictated
by the “ghost” of our past. What happened in Hiroshima will forever haunt the
people who live there and what happened to the Japanese-Americans during WWII,
as well. Oil pollution will take decades to dissolve and by then the damage has
already been do and can never be fixed. The dream for a perfect future will never
be reached because of the pain and ruins of today.
My fourth quote
was from Seeing Power chapter 2, “After decades of increased visual production,
culture as a whole has evolved in its capacity to interpret codes. Increasing
visual literacy provides an acute sense of intentionality” (37). Before, people
could not understand nor did they want to believe the horrors and evil that we
as people create and cause to each other and the world. American’s refuse to
believe what happened to the Japanese-American’s until they were shown proof
and as a result they are now educated in the events that occurred so hopefully
an event like this never happens again. Similar to environmentalists and how
they try and spread awareness to people about oil pollution and how before big
oil companies got away with causing harm to the ocean, but now people hold them
responsible for their actions. The world is not perfect and it never will be,
but the exhibit The Persistence of
History and the readings from Seeing
Power and The Interventionists
has shown me that as long as we are educated and not blinded by what others
want us to believe, life can get better for everyone and people can receive justice.
Daniel Beltra, Crude Oil
Making Meaning out of Ocean Pollution
No more oil spills
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