A
Catalyst For Change
Art as a catalyst for change is an idea that we at
the Alternative Museum have believed in and promoted
for more than 28 years. It is with this premise
that we present The Human Condition: After Effects,
an
exhibition that focuses art and photography on
children surviving injustice. Importantly, the exhibition
visually attempts to fill in the informational
gaps
that government and the media refuse to close.
This exhibition aims to encourage viewers to work
toward positive change. It begs the viewer to contemplate
on David Dare Parker’s images of Roma children
in Transylvania. These children survive on the gleanings
of a putrid garbage dump (while we in the U.S. live
in a society bred to consume useless commodities that
have a built in obsolescence); to consider Carol Guzy’s
esssay on the children in Sierra Leone who must endure
the unspeakable horrors of amputations so that we can
buy "blood diamonds"; and to consider the
portrayals by George Azar and Yannis Kontos of war
orphans in Lebanon and Afghanistan. These children
survive wars that are fought for control of the profitable
petroleum supplies needed to run our urban gas guzzling
sports utility vehicles (that incidentally, never see
a desert or forest). We hope this exhibition will make
us aware of our government’s involvement in the
forced bus transfers of the children of Kosovo as photographed
by Lucian Perkins. These children suffer family separation
and dislocation because outside interests insist on
profiting from the balkanization and rebuilding of
Eastern Europe. Donna De Cesare’s photographs
give us an insight into the life of Guatemalan street
gangs who emulate Los Angeles gangs and admire America’s
organized street criminals for their entrepreneurship
and continued economic successes, in spite of the U.S. "wars
on drugs and/or poverty."
The photograhers in this exhibition reveal to us
what the news media often will not. When the major
networks
report on the "blood diamond" market, they
pay little attention to the amputations committed by "armies
of liberation" to keep children from mining the
rivers. If mothers and children die from chemical weapon
attacks it is the media’s responsibility to inform
the public how the American pharmaceutical industry
and U.S. military have created, sold, and to this day,
stockpile the world’s largest supplies of these
same weapons of mass destruction. The networks should
let the public know that the use of depleted uranium
tipped bombs in Kosovo and Iraq contaminated villages
for 4 billion years; that children there are often
born with three eyes or with missing brains.
We can begin global change by re-informing ourselves
with alternative sources of information. I say alternative
because our traditional streams of news have been
compromised, if not corrupted, by the captains of the
media industry.
I believe the Internet is a good place to start.
In this topsy-turvy world we must commit ourselves
to
informing our fellow citizens if our democracy is
to survive.
For their courage and commitment to informing the
world, I am indebted to the photographers in this exhibition.
For its support of art as a catalyst for change,
I
thank the Nathan Cummings Foundation. Geno Rodriguez
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