We started this week’s session by running the Buzzfeed experiment I had suggested the week prior. After lining up the group, I proceeded to read out questions, to which – if the answer was ‘yes’ – the participant should take one step forward. There ended up being a lot fewer questions than I recalled, but, even after the limited set that we had available, it was interesting to see the disparities in perceived privilege between such a small group of people. This led us to create the statement “Though everyone has the right to human rights, only some have the opportunity to exercise them”, which I found to be a really interesting concept and starting point for us to work from.
We then proceeded to share our own personal artistic responses to the article, drawing from our backgrounds to present vastly different pieces to the rest of the group. I chose to present a graphic I had found which had been created during the 2016 United States Presidential campaign by Shepard Fairey, the same artist who had designed Barack Obama’s ‘Hope’ poster in 2008. These three images showed three women – one black, one Native American, and one Muslim – each superimposed onto the American flag. I found this a really compelling statement, not only the image itself, but also due to the backlash it received from the American Right, with some labelling it ‘disgusting’ and ‘perverse’. By showing these women, covered by a universal symbol of freedom, and the hatred this received, it highlighted to me an immediate instance of how people do not have a right to freedom of expression or thought – even in the West – and so seemed a perfect response to the statement and article we had settled on.
Other contributions ranged from Opera scores to animation, and drew on a multitude of different themes – from individuality in society, to a celebration of what it means to be able to live freely. To see so many unique responses was fascinating and highlighted to me one of the benefits of the collaborative process; giving us a chance to draw from such a wide pool of artistic disciplines and backgrounds. As we dissected these responses through discussion, however, it became clear how picking such an all-encompassing article may prove to be a bigger challenge than expected, as there was no clear connection between the sections we were trying to join together. This led some in the group to suggest changing our article and starting the process over again. I was completely opposed to this, however, as I felt we did not have enough time left to be able to properly analyse and devise on a new article. I fought my case and group consensus went with the idea of sticking with Article Two. I feel that, though it may not have been where I’d wanted to end up, it had fallen to me to ensure the group stayed on track – both in relation to our time constraints and to the week-by-week plan – so as to ensure we had a finished piece by the end of the process. With this in mind, we concluded that our aim for next week would be to individually consider ways to weave our artistic responses together, feeding back at the start of the next session.