For the weekly selfie from the week of 4/18 I was inspired by Sharon Lee De La Cruz's "Climate Altars (Yemaya)" piece from the W11: eye of the storm art exhibition. When I heard De La Cruz speak about her piece that was influenced by Santeria religion I was interested. The Santeria religion has everything to do with nature and spirituality. De La Cruz wanted to show the ritualistic experience of having a relationship to the world (climate change in particular) through a religion that is already based on connecting to the earth. This made me think of my own religion or lack of and how I choose to identify myself through personal choice. There is a picture from my first communion hung up in my house. Growing up I went to church on Sunday and attended Sunday school because my parents wanted me to. As I grew up I realized that I had no clue what I believed in or didn't believe in and made a choice to stray away from the Catholic religion I grew up in. For my selfie I decided to show my detachment from the religion I grew up into by wearing a dress and veil of opposite color. It is like a before and after.
I believe this relates to 12 and 33 from the first chapter of Guy-Ernest Debord's The Society of the Spectacle. The first quote reads, "The spectacle presents itself as something enormously positive, indisputable and inaccessible. It says nothing more than "that which appears is good, that which is good appears. The attitude which it demands in principle is passive acceptance which in fact it already obtained by its manner of appearing without reply, by its monopoly of appearance."
This quote basically says to me that the image we put out in the world will automatically not be questioned because its existence demands passive acceptance and no reply or questioning. Basically “What appears is good; what is good appears.” I think this ties into the first communion photo that's framed on my wall. No one questions my beliefs when they see it and I'm sure they have an idea of my beliefs because it's associated with the religion I portray to follow in the photo. The photo that is hung up looks nice and it must be what is shown. No questions necessary.
The second quote reads, "Separated from his product, man himself produces all the details of his world with ever increasing power, and thus finds himself ever more separated from his world. The more his life is now his product, the more lie is separated from his life. I think this quote is trying to say that the more people try to create their life with the full power that they have the further they are from that life they created. I believe this ties into my selfie because I have tried to create my life when I was younger by trying to believe in the Catholic religion and follow it by going to Sunday school like my mom wanted but I continued to feel further away from it and myself. Having my own personal choice and not fixating on showing that I am Catholic or any religion has made me feel closer to my identity.
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