Statement for assessment

Shona Slemon

K00136247

Whenlifegivesyouslemon.blogspot.com

 

Headlines and stories; blending politics,

 Pop culture and pictures to tell a story.

 

A child’s innocence in precious, their trust, loyalty and naivety are treasured qualities. Unfortunately a lot of children are surrounded by people who don’t see this, people who violate their rights, even though a child’s rights are just as important as anyone else’s. Children are not strong enough to defend themselves and stand up for their right and there are people in this world who take advantage of this. People who use a child's dependence for their own benefit, to make their clothes, to fight their wars, to satisfy sexual needs and to bully because they know a child is too weak to fight back.

This violation of children’s rights is something we deal with on a daily basis; we hear about the 400 children detained, tortured and killed in Syria in the paper, we see advertisements for brands like Nike and Sony, when we know the products are most likely made by a child who is under paid and over worked, we see images of young girls at beauty pageants and in high fashion magazines, sexualising themselves at an age where they should be embracing innocence.

In my prints and drawings, most of the figures represent the child who is abused and neglected. I intended on dramatizing the vulnerability of these children who are forgotten all over the world.

 

Protest

Where would we be without science in this day and age? It’s hard to know, science has brought us so far in medicine, technology, and science has taught us so much about the world around us. Nearly everything we use and know has been altered, improved and tested by science; our foods, our hair and beauty products, our medicines etc. Unfortunately this comes at a cost. Everything must be tested before human consumption or use, now some companies (i.e. Mac, Benefit make up companies) morals are higher than others and also they are higher earning that they can afford to test their products in a way that does not harm another creature. It’s an interesting argument, this scientific experimentation, to physically harm an animal for the sake of the newest mascara or hair dye on the market does seem unnecessary, it seems immoral and shallow to endanger a living creature for the sake of beauty... It has been said... ‘There’s no beauty without pain’. But in other cases, more serious cases when this scientific experimentation is saving lives due to stem cell research it is hard to know.

I began with the idea of animal testing and scientific experimentation in general and the ethics surrounding this. Think of the Frankenstinian Science behind it all, the mutation, the hybrids, scientists are trying to blend embryos mixed with human genes and a cows DNA, a test tube animal/human hybrid. The morbidity and grotesqueness of it all, odd or unnatural in shape, appearance, or character; fantastically ugly or absurd; the bizarre, anything that evokes a feeling of uncomfortable empathic pity. This are the themes I wanted to bring into my prints, the unethical and wrongful experimentation that surrounds us today.