Thursday, October 29, 2009 // 9:56 PM
something is bothering me. i just read this article on jakarta post
[link]. and i must say it got me thinking.
i suggest you read the article before moving on to read this post.
you see, the issue of stereotypes have been bothering me a lot. i kept a mindset that stereotyping is a form of prejudice. you frown upon people who you do not favour. whether it is the way they dress, the music they listen to or apparently, according to the jakarta post article, the way we type words to appear on the monitor.
i tried so hard to not be prejudiced towards people who i don't know. i mean, you really can't judge the true qualities of a person just by the way they dress. we might not like their style, but it doesn't mean they should be frowned at and be blatantly mocked at.
but here's where my hypocrisy lies.
i didn't do any of that. i didn't look at a person and not frown upon the way they dress if it's not my liking. even when i don't shout mocking commentaries about their style in front of them, in my head i put them into my 'SO NOT' box.
apparently, stereotyping is inescapable. we tend to categorize people and put them into separate boxes.
how can we stop that? beats me. i'm fighting that notion to not stereotype myself. i'm still in that process. but i try not to as hard as i can.
so through my realisation that escaping stereotypes are just impossible nowadays, i decided to make my next artwork on stereotypes, based on this experience of mine.
but i'm trying to make a unique one here teehee.
so the idea is, i'll have my model to dress up as two different, contrasting stereotypes, and put their portrait side by side. supposedly, the audience would have different judgement towards the same model dressed in different stereotype. well at least that's the effect i'm trying to get :P
anyways, i'm gonna curhat a bit here hehe.
i got this idea when i was in precamp 2 this year. i was with the village kids and we played this stereotype game. one of them was, we divided the room into to sides. we were given 2 choices and go to the side that represents our choice. e.g. kids who enjoys watching soccer goes to the left side of the room and the ones who doesn't goes to the other. then, we were supposed to argue about why our choice is right and their's aren't. then we were given another 2 choices, different ones this time. and we were suppose to argue again. so we did. it was messy. kids were shouting at each other. the room was noisy.
but something struck me.
i was defending something i favour, alongside someone who i argued against beforehand. a few minutes ago i shouted mean things at this person because we didn't like the same thing. but now we were on the same side, defending something we favour for. it just got me thinking, why did i shut this person off, just because he/she has a different opinion than i do. why do we focus on the differences not the similarities?
so that'll be the concept of my next artwork.
i wonder whether people would pass different judgment to the same person dressed in different clothing or not.
teehee.
this'll be fun.
but in the mean time i must go make the researches and experimentations first.
well this post has deviated into something thoughtful to something... less thoughtful haha.
oh well.
i'm gonna go now.
ciao! :)
Labels: Thoughtful Thoughts
