I suppose I started with content for this assignment. Around my room I have a clothesline strung, and clipped to it are pictures of art from around the world. It all started in Greece, when I was traveling and was struck by all the 'unconventional' beauty I found there. I was well versed on Greece's recent economy crash when I visited in 2012 and where I had expected rubble, there emerged this incredibly evocative street scene of artists speaking, or painting rather, their emotions all over the remnants of their country. Growing up in Chicago, I was more than familiar with graffiti and murals but this was a whole new genre. The art in Athens was filled with political commentary; it was a way for broken people to feel in control in a small way, but that said something in a larger-than-life way. One artist repetitiously drew a black and white woman with spaghetti hair that gazed dreamily out at the passerby's. I began to hunt down his work, checking around every corner hoping I could find her again in the next alleyway. Searching for her became more important than anything other aspect of the city, and I felt myself take on her mystified gaze as I walked through those ancient ruins. Something about that trip felt so surreal. Whether it was her influence or just the idea of Greece itself, I can't say, but she moved a part of me and I found her again everywhere I went.
On to Rome, Peru, Chile... I continued to note the dramatic work of street artists, and in each place I went the purpose seemed to shift. In Chile, particularly in the seaport of Valparaiso, I noticed a huge political movement in their art. As you climb the hills over the bohemian city and look out at the Pacific crashing into the city, you can see colorful houses lined up like 'little boxes on the hillside', each one flecked with something unique, just like the people of this city. And if you were to make your way down to the ocean, as you walk you'd run into a mural of Presidente Allende, who was assassinated by the military dictator Pinochet whose iron fist ruled Chile for over 20 years. Almost 25 years later, this mural still brings much controversy to the divided country. But the incredible thing is not the controversy that surround these politics, but the very fact that the mural is there at all. In a country that was so heavily repressed for such an immense period of time, freedom of anything is a right that the Chileans have earned. Their art loves to celebrate vida- life, las reizes- roots, and la cultura- their joyous culture.
After spending what seemed like a lifetime immersed in this art and these cultures, coming back to Bozeman, Montana where our only art is limited to power boxes and galleries was more than disappointing. A part of me missed what's labeled here as 'deviant' culture, and so in my project I wanted to bring these photos back to life somehow.
They meant so much to me that it was difficult to decide on a form. I didn't want it to be purely a slide show (even though this may have been the best service to the art I could have done) for fear of it being 'boring'. I didn't want a lot of words because in some ways I felt the photos should speak for themselves, and because of this I sort of backed myself into a corner. I chose to balance the weight of the pictures with a more upbeat and fun audio track so that the viewer felt like the pictures were moving somewhere, and I paced the pictures at different intervals to help distinguish the really great, more meaningful ones from some that I personally just tended to like the visual of. I think in a sense this was the writing process for this assignment, This was a change for me, since I'm more of a creative writer and tend to love the sound of words on a page. If I had to do it again, I'm sure I would go about the presentation differently, and I'm not entirely happy with some of the choices I did make in hindsight (I would change my audio to something less annoying and the font to something more serious, also wtf is up with the horrible quality?).
Overall, though, I'm just happy to have had the chance to share these photos with a group of people. I think it's important to share art from around the world because other cultures often have a really different definition of beautiful than the one we find ourselves trapped in the great U.S. of A.
As far as what I know now... I know how to make a video!
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