Global Jungle

Overview

Global Jungle is an installation that derives inspiration from the phenomenon of global migration evident in today's large international cities such as New York, London and Amsterdam. The concept is one that synthesizes two theories. One is that the world's peoples, through technological evolution in air travel and telecommunications have become coalesced into a globally conscious village. The other is the view that our large cities have become densely populated urban jungles.The fact of such large cities as multicultural sites and the images they generate from within this condition is the focal point of this work. Contrary to some beliefs that maintain cultural and ethnic diversity is a recipe for social strife, and is antithetical to a stabilizing cultural authority, Global Jungle takes the view that this condition functions as a catalyst for new cultural paradigms and artistic vision. Submitting that art can recognize life beyond its own specialized and artificial universe is the artistic philosophy that this installation presents through the selections and juxtapositions of images and objects.

Although art making is an investment of feelings and intuitions, it also has the potential to provide an opportunity for intellectual, cultural and social exchange. Discourse fashions the general critical context within which art objects exist, are produced and are viewed. It also fashions the general critical context within which disparate communities learn to understand and appreciate one another. Discourse is the tool with which the ideas concerning the practice of art making, and with which the subject of the art works themselves as emblems of the cultural record are examined.

It is said that a picture is worth a thousand words. Visual art is a language of its own. The wordless impact of visual art is made to express things that cannot be spoken. Art is visual, it's graphism is about looking and seeing and thinking visually. The emblems representing the cultural/artifact record in Global Jungle are visual. The contemporary public signs (the two floor sculptures) represented in Global Jungle are appropriations of designs created with the intent to facilitate intercultural communication in public places like international airports. The cultural symbols (the five large medallions) are intended to show homage, and serve to demonstrate how well the various cultures around the globe have managed to distinguish and represent themselves emblematically.

The artist whose personal motivations and politics are subject to endless speculation is challenged by the labyrinthine relationships between art and public discourse. Great art cannot be created in a vacuum. Public intercourse with artistic expression is essential for an energized dialogue, visual or otherwise. Social and cultural discourse contribute to the artist's ability to formalize, reformalize and crystallize their purposes. Because the ever unsettled issues of meanings in visual art may not reflect the conditions that inspires the artist's imagery, a willingness to engage the source of artistic inspiration in social and cultural experience is a worthwhile undertaking for the artist.

Cultural artifacts write their own story visually. The culture of visual expression is often where the dialogue about social and cultural value begins to have a stake, as the artist is a genuine eyewitness to the events unfolding around us. The artist can be an enormously animated and prodigiously articulate intellectual force. It is with Global Jungle that this artists wishes to show our interconnectedness.

The art of the future will be the product of the cultures of the future, reflecting all of the imagination, effort and unforeseen accidents that will create it. If we are lucky, we will see a great deal of this unfolding in our own lifetimes.

© H.MeC