To start - some pretty foliage, real and the sort I made from card and paint
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Ok, lest someone is unaware at this point of the ecological, social and political significance of bananas... you better look back through my blog.
It is also 'no plastic' month this month so I am trying to give 'one life' plastic a second eternal life; the rubbish chucked out onto Peckham Rye Lane is my treasure chest.
Plastic = claustrophobic, preservatory, hints at a short lived contents.
So a cinema screen of plastic = what are you going to do with the knowledge you've gained from the film? Don't let it go, be connected and engaged. Act on your impulses to make positive changes, however small. And take that as a practice for bigger things; be an activist. Even if you're just an armchair activist and whine to your mates about ocean litter, or Exxon funding false science since the 80s, or about factory farming, George Osborne, FGM, Syria, refugees in the Med...whatever it is..... at least you're sharing concerns and information.
Don't sit. You'll squash the life out of the poor dear bananas.
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| This is a collaboration between my and my favourite six year old, Kelsey! It's a banana tree. We were looking at my previous paintings of bananas and Kelsey did this drawing of a banana tree! I added a few bananas, and the banana cutout from a cardboard box I found on Peckham Rye Lane. Kelsey gave me lots of 'smiley faces' for my other paintings which is rad, cos she really is my toughest critic, and the one I aim to impress the most! If you can impress a child with art you know you're onto a winner with what you want to say! |
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| Sketches for the 'Guiltiplex' |
And :
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I'm working on a similar installation (i guess that's what it is?) piece which is about abuse of resources. But it is also (because bananas are a focus!), as this piece is, slightly concerned, on a side note, with exploitation of indigenous communities for the benefit and entertainment of greedy colonisers.
I feel very embarrassed about this, and the only thing that makes me feel slightly more pleased about modern western and commonwealth politics is Kevin Rudd's (former Aussie PM - and the one of their best to date) official apology in 2008 (nearly 250 years too late!!) to the Indigenous Australians for the Stolen Generation of native children, who were taken from their families to be brought up with 'a future' - which means in the Western colonisers communities alongside Christianity and commerce. Urggh. But Britain, Holland and the modern Australian nation (among others) still have to apologise for everything they ever did to the Aboriginals, and even then that'll never be enough.
Anyway, I feel very conscious of not using indigenous art forms or cultures, or trying to speak for them, even though I totally admire them. I need to work out the balance between coming across as a wannabe spokesperson and appropriator/pasticheur (bad) of indigenous cultures, and simply offering a mental bridge between indigenous and coloniser nations in order for colonisers to become aware and appreciative and less arrogant.
At the British Museum exhibition about Indigenous Australia, there is a great quote by Vincent Namatijira, an artist of the Western Arrernte/Pitjantjatjara people:
"It was the beginning of our shared history. Everything after (Captain James) Cook was between all of us"
We have to tread carefully and respectfully forever for being so bolshy, greedy and heavy handed (and that'd putting it as simply as possible!) We're linked now.
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And on another note, a cryptic clue....
OCEAN BONES to come...
