These last two weeks have been dedicated to research the work of other artists and the ways in which they create or break narratives about different actual topics.
I found very interesting and outstanding works in the following artists:
Jesse Jones (Ireland)
She is a Dublin-based artist who uses multiple formats in her artwork mixing film, performance, installation, and collective structures to explore, question and challenge historical narratives in culture through current concepts and situation. Her work challenges the status quo and allows the audience to reflect on concepts as feminism, the law and its physical influence on the excluded bodies in society, historical events that has divided societies in countries as Ireland or Korea, among other topics.
A remarkable element in some or her works is the re-script or re-enact from previous films, situations, or dramatic works to give them a new look from today’s perspective. An example of this is The Other North (2013), a film where people re-enact therapy sessions held by an American psychologist in the 1970s. These sessions were made in Northern Ireland and were seeking to gathered people from different political and social backgrounds to resolve historical conflicts (Source: https://www.jessejonesartist.com). She developed this work after archive research of Northern Ireland and research visits to South Korea.
(Source: Jesse Jones website)
In this work, Jones give us the possibility to know and empathize with the experiences of people whose lives were severely impacted by politic, economic and social conflicts and connect two experiences, North Ireland and Korea, through the re-enact of Northern Ireland stories by South Korean people.
Alberta Whittle (Barbados / Scotland)
Artist, researcher, and curator who explores concepts as racism, colonialism, inclusion, diversity, and others related to them using multiple formats (film, collage, installation, sculpture, founded objects) in public and private spaces. Her work allows the viewers to question not only the society as their selves to battle xenophobia and racism challenging narratives behind mainstream images, phrases and other elements with her own background and narrative as a migrant person.
A notable example of her work is Business as Usual (2020), because she appropriates a phrase that came from the business area, which means to keep on going despite of the circumstances and used it to question how the institutions and society claims being inclusive and diverse but in reality, they are not, or they are in a lukewarm and politically convenient way (Source: https://www.albertawhittle.com/business-as-usual.html).
(Images: Alberta Witthle website)
Using collage technique, Whittle juxtaposes images of her own body, her culture, and stereotypes about these to challenge the narrative of power in which inclusion is talked about, yet it is only done from a comfortable point of view that does not upset people not directly affected by colonialism and racism.
With all the above in mind I made a new brainstorming to explore new possible topics for project 2:
Witches: what is said about them in the past? What is said about them now? Who works for those narratives? How have been broken these narratives and by who? What can I say about this topic?
Objects from another continents and civilizations in the Museum Collections: Why all these objects are there? What is said about them? Whats the official story about them and what is Hidden? Are shown through an stereotypical view? How they got these objects? Were collected? Were stolen? What can I say about this topic?
