20 May 2011
Two artists explore how the human mind perceives disasters in a media-driven world
A surf-skiing accident that ripped her kayak into two was a big disaster for Julia Townsend. But the Dubai-based American artist transformed her personal experience of disaster into a wider exploration of the disasters that affect our lives and our planet. She re-attached the bow of the damaged boat to the hull and stuck a variety of inflatable animals around the joint to create an art installation, titled Noah's Ark.
"This piece explores the place of humanity in a world where our own destructive forces exceed our control. It is reminiscent of Delacroix's famous painting, The Raft of the Medusa, about tragedy at sea. But instead of people stranded on a flimsy raft, here we have plastic animals clinging to a shattered carbon shell. Through this work I want to draw attention both to the plight of wildlife and the excess of non-biodegradable pollutants in our environment. This Noah's Ark is a useless wreck that reminds us of the real disaster of the loss of many species as humanity encroaches further into the natural habitats of animals," Townsend says.
The installation is part of a joint exhibition, titled The Imagination of Disaster, by Townsend and Dubai-based Brazilian artist Marcelo Guimarães Lima. The two artists are associate professors at the American University in Dubai.
Their choice of theme was influenced by the recent earthquake and nuclear disaster in Japan. And the exhibition features drawings, paintings, installations and digital prints that reflect on the experience of disasters in our times.
"In 1945 Susan Sontag wrote a famous essay titled The Imagination of Disaster about science fiction films of the Cold War period. She claimed that by presenting fantasy disaster scenarios the films normalised our psychologically unbearable fears and inculcated a strange apathy towards dangers such as radiation. Sontag observed that the fantasy of fear in science fiction cinema covered the real fear in the 20th century of nuclear war leading to mass annihilation of the human race and isolated it from its real sources.
"But going beyond the neutralisation of historical anxiety, the artistic imagination of disaster in the 21st century requires us to deconstruct the image of fear that paralyses our historical consciousness of the present," Lima says.
"After the earthquake in Japan, I found myself sketching images of the disaster and realised how the scenes I saw in the news had affected me subconsciously. I proposed this theme for the exhibition so that I could process my own thoughts and feelings. Through this exhibition, I want to examine how the disasters of our times impact us and how we process our experiences of them," he adds.
Lima is exhibiting a charcoal drawing and a series of digital prints representing various disasters, ranging from the natural and man-made disaster in Japan to socio-political disasters such as the situation in Palestine. He combines his drawings, paintings and monotype prints with media images to create his abstract compositions.
"Today we face cultural, economic, social, ecological and many other disasters. Does the media coverage of these make us more informed or make the event a spectacle that we see from afar and do not think about? By presenting the media images in a different and aesthetic way, I want to encourage people to look beyond what is shown and told to us and to question the greed, short-sighted decisions and dysfunctional society that have caused these disasters. We must use our imagination to see what is missing and to change and transform the situation," Lima says.
Townsend's approach is more personal. Like her boat installation, many of her oil paintings are based on her experiences and address this grim topic with a touch of humour. Her painting, titled Via Ferrata, alludes to the cliffs of Wadi Bani Awf in Oman, where she recently climbed the Via Ferrata. And she has painted a safety net on the wall below the canvas. "Nobody fell from the wire cables, down to the canyon 70 metres below; but when you are looking down those steep rocks, your imagination runs wild," she says.
Similarly, her painting When Fear and Weapons Meet, is about anxious rumination — the re-play in the mind when one survives a near-disaster. Another painting, titled, Good Lord Deliver Us, refers to the fears of imaginary ghosts and beasts that plague us in the dark of night and the prayers that help us deal with the fears.
She reflects on the disaster in Japan with images of nuclear reactors and people wearing protective masks and a painting of a fish-like man that speculates on the side effects of the radiation leakage in Fukushima. The artist, who is an illustrator, writer of children's books and poet, has also written poems that express her thoughts about personal and global disasters.
"Sontag's essay talked about the apathy resulting from watching disaster films. But today, watching live coverage of disasters from the safety of our homes can also lead to apathy. The constant media focus makes us numb to the horror and stops us from trying to know about the reasons behind it. But when you are a citizen of the United States, a country that spends 40 per cent of the total world expenditure on defence, your imagination for disaster may be quite large. So my work is about the folly of what we don't know and the fear of the unknown. Despite all the insurances we buy, we cannot be free from the fear of the unknown and I use humour to deal with that," Townsend says.
"This piece explores the place of humanity in a world where our own destructive forces exceed our control. It is reminiscent of Delacroix's famous painting, The Raft of the Medusa, about tragedy at sea. But instead of people stranded on a flimsy raft, here we have plastic animals clinging to a shattered carbon shell. Through this work I want to draw attention both to the plight of wildlife and the excess of non-biodegradable pollutants in our environment. This Noah's Ark is a useless wreck that reminds us of the real disaster of the loss of many species as humanity encroaches further into the natural habitats of animals," Townsend says.
The installation is part of a joint exhibition, titled The Imagination of Disaster, by Townsend and Dubai-based Brazilian artist Marcelo Guimarães Lima. The two artists are associate professors at the American University in Dubai.
Their choice of theme was influenced by the recent earthquake and nuclear disaster in Japan. And the exhibition features drawings, paintings, installations and digital prints that reflect on the experience of disasters in our times.
"In 1945 Susan Sontag wrote a famous essay titled The Imagination of Disaster about science fiction films of the Cold War period. She claimed that by presenting fantasy disaster scenarios the films normalised our psychologically unbearable fears and inculcated a strange apathy towards dangers such as radiation. Sontag observed that the fantasy of fear in science fiction cinema covered the real fear in the 20th century of nuclear war leading to mass annihilation of the human race and isolated it from its real sources.
"But going beyond the neutralisation of historical anxiety, the artistic imagination of disaster in the 21st century requires us to deconstruct the image of fear that paralyses our historical consciousness of the present," Lima says.
"After the earthquake in Japan, I found myself sketching images of the disaster and realised how the scenes I saw in the news had affected me subconsciously. I proposed this theme for the exhibition so that I could process my own thoughts and feelings. Through this exhibition, I want to examine how the disasters of our times impact us and how we process our experiences of them," he adds.
Lima is exhibiting a charcoal drawing and a series of digital prints representing various disasters, ranging from the natural and man-made disaster in Japan to socio-political disasters such as the situation in Palestine. He combines his drawings, paintings and monotype prints with media images to create his abstract compositions.
"Today we face cultural, economic, social, ecological and many other disasters. Does the media coverage of these make us more informed or make the event a spectacle that we see from afar and do not think about? By presenting the media images in a different and aesthetic way, I want to encourage people to look beyond what is shown and told to us and to question the greed, short-sighted decisions and dysfunctional society that have caused these disasters. We must use our imagination to see what is missing and to change and transform the situation," Lima says.
Townsend's approach is more personal. Like her boat installation, many of her oil paintings are based on her experiences and address this grim topic with a touch of humour. Her painting, titled Via Ferrata, alludes to the cliffs of Wadi Bani Awf in Oman, where she recently climbed the Via Ferrata. And she has painted a safety net on the wall below the canvas. "Nobody fell from the wire cables, down to the canyon 70 metres below; but when you are looking down those steep rocks, your imagination runs wild," she says.
Similarly, her painting When Fear and Weapons Meet, is about anxious rumination — the re-play in the mind when one survives a near-disaster. Another painting, titled, Good Lord Deliver Us, refers to the fears of imaginary ghosts and beasts that plague us in the dark of night and the prayers that help us deal with the fears.
She reflects on the disaster in Japan with images of nuclear reactors and people wearing protective masks and a painting of a fish-like man that speculates on the side effects of the radiation leakage in Fukushima. The artist, who is an illustrator, writer of children's books and poet, has also written poems that express her thoughts about personal and global disasters.
"Sontag's essay talked about the apathy resulting from watching disaster films. But today, watching live coverage of disasters from the safety of our homes can also lead to apathy. The constant media focus makes us numb to the horror and stops us from trying to know about the reasons behind it. But when you are a citizen of the United States, a country that spends 40 per cent of the total world expenditure on defence, your imagination for disaster may be quite large. So my work is about the folly of what we don't know and the fear of the unknown. Despite all the insurances we buy, we cannot be free from the fear of the unknown and I use humour to deal with that," Townsend says.
The Imagination of Disaster will run at Total Arts at the Courtyard until June 6.
Jyoti Kalsi is a UAE-based art enthusiast.
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