The original resource I produced displays the current climate in neoliberalism which values profit over human beings and the environment. On the theme of border crossing the focal point of the image is of a pregnant woman being fed bitumen from the oil industry which flows down her throat. In the womb is an inversed image of the earth’s core to convey that anthropogenic climate change is accelerating, off to the side is an image of a baby in a cage at an immigration detention center which speaks to the realities of migration and travel as a refugee.
I used mixed media of bold acrylic paints, striking photographs, and electronically produced images to create a work of art that evokes a dystopiotic present which aims to frighten the viewer while making a political statement of the interconnection between neoliberalism, colonialism, industrial capital with migration restrictions in a confined world, environmental degradation and increased proliferation of violence.
I think its important to explain why I chose to make the subject my art pregnant. I made this decision because it represents the strength of the earth to be reborn from the ashes of exploitation. I chose to make the body naked to show the raw power present in the natural state of humanity beyond state control over our biology.
Often as a species we feel foreign to the world around us due to the increased presence of isolation driven technologies, which is why I collaged the images very close to the flesh of the woman depicted in the centre of the painting. With this artwork I hope to spark the idea that as humans we are not separated by borders, walls, citizenship, ethnicity, race, class, gender, or sexuality but rather we are united in the struggle to live, create, and breathe in a world we have the power to protect and the responsibility to generate change. The wings coming out of the body of the subject of the painting represents how it is imperative to transcend borders and rebuild our conception of what it means to be part of humanity.
Keywords: progress, weapons, transnational subject
Author: Anne Goodfellow
Wow. I find this art piece to be so striking and so vivid in a way that is unsettling but also... hopeful? The use of colour and the mixed modality of photographs and paint immediately caught my eye. I like that you’ve made a point here of bringing in environmental destruction into this transnational feminist discourse because I think it tends to be one crucial element that is easy to leave out of the discussion. The way we treat the Earth is inextricably linked to the way we treat our fellow beings and as corrupt governments and corporations thrive off of capitalism and border imperialism as tools in domination over peoples they are also dominating and destroying the land. I…