How artists are engaging in the the issues of indentity.

Authors Avatar by marving (student)

‘There is no essence of identity to be discovered; rather, cultural identity is continually being produced within the vectors of similarity and difference.’According to this statement, culture identity is changing continually in the lead of likeness and unlikeness but can it be apply to all the cultural position? I will discuss this through talking about three artists’ work with different culture roots.      

When I think about issues of identity, Pakistan firstly come out from my mind. I think the conflict between Muslim and Indian happen there can be a good example to talk about. I am going to discuss Huma Mulji’s works as they relate to the identity issues within her society very well. Huma Mulji was born in Karachi, Pakistan and her parents are both Indian Pakistani. In her works, she mainly focus on her discontent about The  trend of Muslim Pakistani government giving pressure to the whole society to replace their South Asian identity with a Muslim identity. In one of Mulji’s animal sculptures, “The Arabian Delight”(figure 1), it is a taxidermy camel with bended body putted into a suitcase which is way too small for the camel. The camel is a symbol of Arabian or their culture and the suitcase can be related to Pakistan. This work can be understood as the metaphor of the Arabian culture is not going to fit with Pakistan. It is a strong protest by Mulji to refuse accepting a “new” identity. In response to my discussion in the beginning, I considered Mulji’s works is against the statement as “The Arabian Delight” is an objection of the Muslim culture can be fitted or replace the South Asia culture in Pakistan, which made me think about Mulji and the South Asian in Pakistan insist of their own culture identity, so there is no space of changing. After a deeper consideration, I decided to overthrow my first conclusion because I think even the injection of Muslim culture is excluded by the South Asian race, it can still be a catalyst to toughen the culture identity of South Asian Pakistani. The increase of the differences is actually helping to show the sameness more clearly.        

In the following paragraphs, I’m going to talk about one of my favourite artist’s works and how he engages with identity issues. He is called Chun Fai, Chow and he is a Hong Kong artist. He captured scenes and subtitle from several classic Hong Kong movies and create a series of enamel paintings. Some of those scenes are actually pointing out the questions of identity which challenging Hong Kong people and Chow himself. Am I a proper Chinese? Do I belong to China? In Internal affairs,”I want my identity back” (figure 2), the scene shows the undercover was asking his superior to give his police identity back. In the painting, the undercover sitting along the Vitoria Harbour side where is one of the representative of Hong Kong. This is a very direct reflection of Hong Kong people’s hesitation about our identity. As China ceded Hong Kong to United Kingdom in 1842, it lasted for over 150 years and Hong Kong finally returned to China in 1997. 150 years is obviously not a short time. Western culture had already seeped into our blood and totally became part of our culture. After that long 150 years familiarizing a different culture, some of us may think we generate a mixture of western and eastern culture, but oppositely some of us may think we have got lost in our culture. We are confused about what culture is representing Hong Kong.

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In Love in the fallen city, “I can’t claim to be a real Chinese”(figure 3). In this movie, it is a love story between a British born Chinese man and a Chinese woman happened in Hong Kong. In this scene, the man was telling the woman he is not a real Chinese because his British background. The man dressed up in a western costume and dance with the woman who dressed up in a traditional Chinese costume which is a great figurative of Hong Kong‘s culture. Chow used this scene to emphasis the helpless of most of the Hong Kong ...

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