5/27/2023 0 Comments Seattle unherd![]() The nude figures in the video welcome the viewer with statements regularly encountered by consumers in a department store: “How may I help you today?” and “Are you finding everything alright?” The materials I have chosen are recognizable to most American suburban households: a lawn chair, animal statuettes, and fake grass. With Temple, I wanted to play with fantasies of spiritual paradise, whether based in heaven or here on Earth. This paradise would follow Jehovah’s justifiable destruction of all non-Jehovah’s Witnesses, with very few exceptions. Paradise was rendered with a freshly mowed lawn, manicured bushes, and lions and tigers acting as headrests for middleclass-looking families with conservative haircuts - God’s “Chosen People”. Bees wax imbues each bear with the faint scent of honey.Īs a teenager raised as a Jehovah’s Witness, I was somewhat embarrassed by the rather saccharine illustrations of the anticipated future earthly paradise promoted within JW literature. It is suspended in a corner gazing down upon the viewer. The large Teddy Bear (spirit, god, ruler?) is constructed from the stuffing of the 12 teddy bears spread upon the floor beneath. Certainly, this yearning for re-connection has been a driving force behind much of Western art and thought since Plato. For many in our culture, there is a pervading feeling of disconnection from Nature, causing some to hark back to an imagined pre-industrial paradise-an Eden before the Fall. The piece addresses our complex relationship with Nature and the conflicting sensations many of us feel in its presence. However, I later began to realize just how serious a work it actually is. The idea for “Ambiguity” popped into my head while driving on the freeway. Installation view at the South Seattle Community College Art Gallery. 12 flattened teddy bears, stuffing, bees wax, contact cement, cardboard and wire. Visitors are invited to peruse the lyrics of these hymns while listening to the loop playing in the background.Īmbiguity - 2009. 24 gold-painted wood plaques with hymns from the hymn books hang on a wall. Two old hymn books (one Pentecostal and the other JW), as well as a New Testament Bible translated into the Navajo language, are displayed on a pedestal in the center of the front gallery. Manipulated audio of a Christian (Jehovah’s Witness) congregation singing hymns, combined with audio of my mother and grandfather singing several traditional Navajo songs, play quietly in a continuous loop. This installation is meant to be exhibited in a small space. In my 20’s, it troubled me that I was a spawn of forced assimilation and the outcome of federal termination policy. Yet, just as I believe that my mother was not able to fully purge Navajo sacred traditions from her identity, I knew that, like it or not, Christianity would always be a part of who I am. My uneasiness grew, leading me to finally split with Christianity in my early 20’s. NY, NY.Īs a teenager having grown up as a Christian, I secretly worried what it meant to take on the religion of the colonizer, of the enemy. Installation view at the CUE Foundation Art Gallery. Hymn books, Navajo bible, 24 decoupaged hymns on gold wooden plaques, two-channel audio. "12 Years Of Living Hell" – "No Idea No.How I Learned To Be A Christ-Jun – 2020-21.Smoked Out 7" ( Old Glory Records, 1994).Sometimes I Suck 7" ( Repercussion Records/ Auricle Records, 1993).Assorted Porkchops has planned on releasing a discography in the near future. HeartattaCkzine readers voted Assfactor 4 "Coolest Band to Hang Out With" in 1995. included Columbia's In/Humanity and Premonition, Raleigh, NC's Rights Reserved and Richmond, VA's Action Patrol. Their contemporaries in the southeast U.S. Assfactor 4's sonic approach drew heavily from San Diego's early-1990s group Heroin, but their song structure was notably more akin to 1980's thrash and hardcore, placing Assfactor 4 in a unique position within the DIY hardcore scene of the era. They formed in the fall of 1992 and broke up in late 1997. Assfactor 4 was a hardcore punk band from Columbia, South Carolina, formed by two members of Tonka (Jay and Alex) and two members of Unherd (Eric and Kevin). ![]()
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