In my attempt to launch the new AlyssaHinton.com blog, I decided I needed to “reach back” and show case pivotal things I’ve done to lead up to the present. This post is a show case for a traveling exhibit I participated in called Native Views: Influences of Modern Culture on the Art Train USA (2004). I wanted to share the article here written by well known art critic Lucy Lippard, entitled Cultural Modernism and Technology (April, 2004). I have been included in a small paragraph on the 3rd page (highlighted in yellow).
“Seenoevil.FireBurn” is a visual narrative symbolizing the price (sacrifice) being paid for the destructive choices humankind makes that disregard the future wellbeing of all living things. In this piece the sea turtle represents our connection to the earth, and, as an amphibian, it also represents the bridge from water to land. In Iroquois lore, sky woman fell through a hole in the atmosphere and landed on turtle’s back, which, through human and animal cooperation, became the earthly land that supports (nurtures) all life.
This image of the turtle ablaze shows the end of innocence, but with this painful crucifixion comes a resurrection / reconciliation after passing through the darkest hour. Nothing escapes the turtle’s vision and while it is familiar with the evil face of destruction wrought from fear and lies, it dons protective eyewear to diffuse the damaging glare. It seeks to keep its mind pure and to “see no evil”. With the turtle (the symbolic foundation) being one of the oldest creatures from the earth’s remote past, the precariousness of it’s very survival (inseparable from ours) could summon the end of our own denial, and the beginning of our awakening from slumber.
