Africas Skin
it starts from all living things.
The Politics Behind Poverty: Keep the masses poor and repressed by paying low wages, making healthcare and education inaccessible, spend as little money as possible on them, let them die of disease and starvation because we don't care as long as we stay rich - it's not our country, it's not our people, Africa has nothing that we want. Except diamonds.
I want this piece to represent and highlight the environmental and political issues of Africa, in particular drought, famine and destruction of the natural environment.
I chose the African elephant because this embodies all three issues. It is hunted close to extinction for it's ivory. Africa is exploited for it's natural riches such as diamonds and oil, by the west. But the diamond and oil traders do not spend their profits building fresh, clean water supplies or sewer systems for the African people.
In the 21st century there should be no such thing as famine any more; we have enough riches and knowledge to evenly distribute the global wealth so that no one and no country need suffer from cold or hunger, but greed prevents us from doing so. The money is there for more oil pipes and more mining drills, but never for clean water pipes.
Greed of Power; it's all about keeping the low, low, so that the high remain high.
The elephant's trunk is also symbolic of water and water supply. You will see many a cartoon in the west depicting an elephant squirting water out of it's trunk, but you won't see us teaching our children that in reality this would never happen as Africa withers in the grasp of massive drought and the elephant population has been hunted close to extinction for it's ivory.
After my group crit 3/5/11 there was a little bit of criticism that stuck in my side and the more I thought about it, the more I disagreed with it. My Tutor suggested to me that the Elephant piece I had created was more 'Art Deco' than it was fine art, or political art, and that if I were to remove the light from inside the trunk, that would qualify the piece as fine art. I disagree with this because the light inside the trunk is integral to the piece as a whole, as it is the light of hope for the future.
It brings the sculpture to life.
I went and researched 'art Deco lamps' online, and I found absolutely nothing that resembled anything like the Elephant piece I have made. I doubt that people looking for an art Deco lamp are going to want messages about death, drought and corruption in their pretty little front rooms, so I stand by my conviction that this piece is a piece of political, not decorative, art.
