With the election and all of the political upheaval going
on, I had a hard time deviating away from a very political piece, for my mind
could not stop thinking about the unrest that is going on in America. When I
started to think of a machine, I thought of the capitalist machine and how
wealth can turn people cold and mechanical, thinking only of profit. With the
results of this election in, it has become clear that capitalism will be
stronger now more than ever and that the political machine will carry on.
The idea of the human turned machine really fascinated me, because
I do believe that over time, people can lose the sentimental nature that they
once had and lose faith in other humans, turning them cold. Often, once people
have something that they deem willing to protect, they forget about the
compassion they once had for others that are struggling. They solidify their
beliefs and forget that they once believed so deeply in something else. As much
as I can appreciate the benefits of capitalism, I do believe that it is a
system that favors a certain group of people and dehumanizes the lower classes
and deems them unworthy of resources. The amount of greed that can come out of
capitalism or even politics in general is so unfortunate, which is why I
selected the very symbolic images that I did for my collage.
I started out with the face of the Statue of Liberty, which
is a huge symbol for America and freedom. I cut out her eyes and under them I
placed a sign for a Trump Tower in New York, in attempt to show how the eyes of
liberty have been jaded and covered by Donald Trump’s ideals. Instead of points
on her headpiece, I placed three Trump towers and the final Trump tower is cut
up along the right side of her body. I drew her body in menswear to capitalize on
the idea that it is “a man’s world” and everything about women, even our
bodies, is about men. In the background,
I cut up five different images of gold bricks and shattered them in the
background. I wanted to reference greed but also a shattered and spilt nation. Although
not very noticeable, I printed out pictures of walls that exist on borders of
countries and included three of them in the background, leading to the head of
the statue of liberty. The final element I wanted to include was this transparent
black paper along with stars. This was meant to represent the confusion and
overlapping lies and judgment form the government, along with a cloud of
confusion and doubt for this country. The stars represent the patriotism of the
victors in the election, but can have a more spiritual or universal metaphor
for the losers. This universe is so big and there are powers larger than us and
maybe this horrible thing happened for a reason and there will be a change in
America that cannot yet be seen. I put all of this on a silver sheet of wrapping
paper, to outline how everything in America seems shiny and new and ideal, but
in truth we actually have a lot of problems. This election was very emotional
for me and this piece embodies my emotions toward the outcome and the despair
for this country that I have begun to face.
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