childhood journals

I was looking through boxes of old photos and projects the other day and found some journals from elementary school that I wrote in when I visited my dad over vacations. It's strange to see yourself from a distance but remember that period so well at the same time.

PostSecret

People send their secrets on postcards to a man who started this project in 2005. It is way of being reminded of the interconnectedness of humanity. It's about sharing our similarities and appreciating our differences, and reaching out to other people. I like the simplicity of the idea, and the feeling of connection in reading the secrets.

Eccentric to Whom

http://elupton.com/2009/10/eccentric-to-whom/

"Eccentric to Whom" considers the discussion of artist versus designer and shows how blurred the division really is.

Alex Burke

Alex Burke was born in Martinique in 1944 and now works in France.

His artist statement reads:

Working from memory and historical narratives has been a way to question my "collective memory," to summon the constituent elements of the Caribbean identity. I have tried to make that confused past become visible; I have placed objects together and created a world of odds and ends. That is the very characteristic of the Caribbean: building up on a field of ruins, fertilizing a field of corpses, patching things up, making treasure of nothing (“Exhibitions: Infinite Island”).

This is a reference to African Vodun, “where dolls become the embodiment of the invisible spirit.” Vodum and other cultural references focus on the positive aspects of one’s identity and continuously remind people of their roots, and thus the strength of their identity.

Maria Magdalena Campos-Pons

Maria Magdalena Campos-Pons is a Cuban-American painter and installation artist.

“Living abroad has brought into sharp relief her experiences as an uprooted black Cuban woman and has compelled her to consider the oral and performative traditions that constitute primary carriers of black identity in the diaspora. These influences complement Campos-Pons’ renewed investigation of Santeria ritual and symbology, through which she now struggles to find her new place by establishing connections with the past” (from the book Artists from Latin American Cultures: a Biographical Dictionary)

In another work, Spoken Softly with Mama, from 1998, she represented her family and past slave families through video images, fabric, furniture, sound, and objects. Campos-Pons spoke about the installation and the influence of space and material objects on identity:

A space can bear the imprint of its inhabitants even in their absence. An object can personify an individual even more than his or her portrait. This is the concept behind the selection of objects- furniture for the installation; a portrait of a family narrated through the voices of objects that constitute their environment (Congdon, 54, 55).

SENIOR PROJECT

This the beginning of my senior project process and now this space is where I will collect the visual inspiration and resources of this exploration.