Specimen Twelve

2020

(Knoxville, Tennessee)

Found slag glass, wood, iron, obsidian, wallpaper, liquid metal

APPROPRIATE / ASSIMILATE

A UNM cultural anthropology graduate [MA; ABD] and a lifetime artist, I address issues of assimilation, displacement and loss along with related arguments about cultural appropriation. I argue they are not opposites but differing modes of appreciation. In a multicultural world, we experience feelings of unfamiliarity, dis-enfranchisement and seduction by the new. Some of us learned as infants to embrace cultural ways. My Swiss immigrant grandfather shared the material culture and tales of Native Americans with us. Captivated by Buffalo Bill’s Wild West shows in 1800’s Europe, he integrated those life-long memories into passionate, shareable interests.