01-06-2025, 07:06 AM
(This post was last modified: 01-06-2025, 07:08 AM by Oh_hunnihunni.)
I'm not going to comment on the tragedy, but on appropriation I have some solid ground, seeing my creative practice involves the adoption and repurposing of existing materials, imagery, ideas, techniques, and tools. The fact is, creative exploration has always involved appropriation. We pick up and use whatever is available, as a species we always have and always will. That is what resources are for, and every living thing on this planet does it, from the fungi that settle on rotting timber to the chimp picking up a stick to tempt ants to climb. There is very little difference between a flag and a piece of cloth used as a painter's rag, it is the meaning imposed upon the material that matters, and then only to specific people at specific times.
Take the sacred, as an example. A church gets consecrated in ceremony and ritual and becomes something beyond bricks and mortar, but only for as long as the people using it find that fiction useful. When that ends the bricks and mortar are destroyed, or repurposed. When someone else appropriates the building or the materials and puts them to another use.
When an artist of a specific culture takes timber and makes a carving, or weaves cloth and makes a flag, or hammers out a metal and makes a grail, it isn't until the purpose or intent is imposed upon the piece that it takes on meaning, and then - only so long as that purpose or intent is maintained. So, burning a flag becomes an act of aggression only when it imposes a different meaning upon the fabric than the original, it is the act that is offensive, not the material. The intent to insult through destruction.
When I take a very beautiful book, that I value because of how it looks, of how the original maker made it, and then I tear and remove, and add, and colour and change it, I am appropriating the materials to create something new, or other, or different, not to insult or assault, but to create by imposing different intent or purpose upon material. That is what matters, not the act of appropriation, but the intent or purpose therein.
Take the sacred, as an example. A church gets consecrated in ceremony and ritual and becomes something beyond bricks and mortar, but only for as long as the people using it find that fiction useful. When that ends the bricks and mortar are destroyed, or repurposed. When someone else appropriates the building or the materials and puts them to another use.
When an artist of a specific culture takes timber and makes a carving, or weaves cloth and makes a flag, or hammers out a metal and makes a grail, it isn't until the purpose or intent is imposed upon the piece that it takes on meaning, and then - only so long as that purpose or intent is maintained. So, burning a flag becomes an act of aggression only when it imposes a different meaning upon the fabric than the original, it is the act that is offensive, not the material. The intent to insult through destruction.
When I take a very beautiful book, that I value because of how it looks, of how the original maker made it, and then I tear and remove, and add, and colour and change it, I am appropriating the materials to create something new, or other, or different, not to insult or assault, but to create by imposing different intent or purpose upon material. That is what matters, not the act of appropriation, but the intent or purpose therein.