"Deconstructing Self" Eastern Washington University Gallery of Art, Fall of 2016.
Artists Statement
We are constructions of our culture, race, family and religion. Our histories create a base for how see and interact with the world around us.
Understanding your construction is key to understanding how you impact those around you for good and bad. To know what your foundation is made of requires honesty and can be a hard thing to do. It means looking at your roots for what they are, how they fit into the world around you and ultimately finding truth within them.
This is the truth of my construction:
Privileged white contemporary American culture constructs a damaging masculine identity within men and women through religious and political institutions. These institutions use “traditional values” to place women, children and minorities under a capitalist power structure that overwhelmingly benefits white men. Communities are manipulated and oppressed by privileged white masculinity to increase productivity for individual and state needs.
The abuses of privileged white masculinity are justified through a "machoism" that is deeply rooted in a fundamentalist interpretation of the Christian faith.
Jesus Christ taught that Christian faith is because of God's love and acceptance of us and then is practiced thought our love and acceptance of those around us. Fundamentalists redefined faith as, “God will love and accept those who first help themselves,” creating an aesthetic faith work ethic. The suffering of minorities, women, and children is then justified; their poverty is due to lack of faith.
I am a white heterosexual Christian male and my identity as a male is built on “traditional” Christian values. The culture and society I live in was and is built to benefit me. When I understanding who I am and where I come from space is created for the voices of the disenfranchised around me empowering them to be heard and understood.
Here is a link to an article done about the show by The Easterner.
Below the pictures of the exhibition are the videos from the show.
Please click on image below to see next in sequence.