Prospective Retrospective – 2020
BA Art Warm-Up – Foundation Course
2021
semester
Virtual Zoetrope series with three different motifs
43cm x 43cm x 29cm
Virtual zoetrope #1
This last year has been dictated by the Corona virus, while every country was hastily trying to implement measures to protect its citizens, the president of the United States constantly kept downplaying the threat of the virus and the preventive effect masks have. By June, after he could not ignore the imminent threat anymore, he changed his politics and even started wearing a mask himself, but by that time it was already too late, and the virus had already reached all the parts of the country. As of now, a staggering 376.000 people have lost their lives due to Covid and the numbers keep rising. Since June, many countries have been going in and out of lockdown, so when really is the right time to pick up the mask and when are we ready to take it off?
Virtual zoetrope #2
2020 has been eventful in many ways. We have seen many changes, but especially many uprisings on a social level. The BLM-movement was omnipresent and forcing us to question some fundamental aspects of our society. We have symbolically taken down many colonial and confederate statues to break with our controversial past. However, if you look at it the other way what did their erection mean for our society and how we live now and is it the right answer to make them disappear from public spaces?
Virtual zoetrope #3
In 2020, Polish women flooded the streets to protest their right to abortion and sadly, as of November 27., abortion has become illegal in Poland and can only be safely practised under specific circumstances. Meanwhile, in Venezuela, change has happened in the opposite direction: after 30 of fighting for reproduction rights, Venezuelan women can finally legally choose to terminate their pregnancy. In both countries, the hangers were used as a symbol during protest, a symbol of extreme methods and objects women are forced to use when abortion is not legal. So, what way do we want to go, do we want to lay the hangers down or to pick them up?