• Starting images: sent to me by Coreterno • my first Digital Creative Collage and Graphic Editing • Software: Adobe Photoshop • Test for Coreterno (2020) /so never released
project report with reflections on the theme, assigned with the collage:
My Culture is not your costume
A people who have been given so many names, so inaccurate and inadequate. A people who already lived with their own rules before being "discovered"; submissive, enslaved and then marginalized and excluded. Today the anger of the so-called Native Americans is loud and clear: they have been relegated to reserves, they have received a sop with which the United States is convinced they can redeem themselves, but it is certainly not enough. Just pay attention to the works of art by contemporary artists such as Wendy Red Star, Nicholas Galanin or any interview done with a Native to find phrases like "I'm not an Indian" underlining the inaccuracy of this name still used today, or “My Culture is not a Costume”. This last sentence is used for protests against Cultural Appropriation, especially on social networks during Carnival and Halloween, when people dress up, stereotyping and aping the customs and traditions of another people. This is what this image wants to convey: anger, pride and familiarity with mother nature. A proud man who looks ahead. Behind him an animal, which reminds them how important a healthy relationship with all living beings is for them, and lilies, flowers that are a symbol not only of purity but also of pride, pride for one's culture, one's name. In the background a manuscript, a symbol of history and rules written without paying too much attention to the needs of a people who have always lived in those lands: words like Americans and Britain crossed out, words like People or Attention instead, underlined or circled angrily. The sentence below presents "your Costume" instead of "a Costume" to directly address the person who will look at the image. Ours is a system that needs to be reviewed, there are rules that need to be rewritten, words that need to be avoided and others learned.
Sara Bianco
