The Periphery
The image was originally conceived back in 2006 in a work I did at uni, it was on cardboard and something that came from my experience in the world of being on the fringe, the periphery of society.
A Sociological theory of the status quo being the centre and anything ‘Other’ was pushed or kept in the margins.
A few different shapes make it through the maze of systems, rules, laws, ways of being.
Can they hold their shape, colour and form?
Their individual perspectives on the world from their lived experience?
Or is the pressure so strong they have to become greater, staying strong in who they are or merge in to survive.
I looked at sub cultures as a young Anthropology student. How some are so pleased to be different and separate devising their own rules and regulations, thinking they are so very different.
little do they know they are another pod replicating the main, pushing and gatekeeping ‘otherness’.
Eventually many sub cultures become watered down, picked up by the market, becoming an aspect of the centre. This can be a great possibility for understanding of the Other, and it can be a loss of the significance of the fringe meaning making and knowing. The taking of the significant sign and symbol of the fringe takes the power of the ritual item away.
Yes! there are all the shades of dancing together that fill the spectrum in between these perspectives as well, but not for todays pondering.
I allude to the acquisition or cultural appropriation for fashion and arts, to make a personal statement, it looks cool, you would rather be that, or you may not have much idea of your own history and rituals due to the squander of history, land wars, things like repression of language, religions, beliefs, arts etc of many peoples.
The lost populations.
We gathered at the Periphery surviving on the crumbs of the centre.
Has anything changed?
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Images by Cynthia Harrison
Acrylic on canvas 30 x 20cm
April 2017
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