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Recontextualized
Vistas
Bumbershoot 2005
It is a human condition to identify groups of people with their
locations. This identification by location tends to create geographical
stereotypes. There are big cities and cow towns, New Yorkers
and Texans, red states and blue states, and there are stereotypical
assumptions attached to groups of people from these locations.
Projected group identities often create an “us vs. them”
mentality. We create the “other” to measure ourselves
against, often encouraging over-generalizations about particular
geographically located groups of people. Small-town life in
particular is often both overly idealized and overly criticized.
In this body of work I am looking at conflicting stereotypes
of small town eastern Washington, where I currently reside,
and small town USA in general. My goal is to incorporate perceived
truths, or evidence of actions believed to be common small town
activities, with the contrasting culturally-ingrained notion
of the idyllic small American town as a safe place to raise
children.
Howard Barlow |
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