Un autoretrato de America y el consumismo

Me ha llegado la información de este artista fotógrafo a través de mi gran amigo Ralph Tiemann. Chirs Jordan habla del consumismo en América usando números y estadísticas, las cuales revela de manera singular en imágenes hechas a partir de fotografías de cosas como botellas de plástico o muñecas Barbies entre otros. Más allá de lo estético de la imagen, lo que me interesa de Chris Jordan es su trabajo artístico que lo desvela como un activista innato y además necesario. Ésto me hace pensar en los arquitectos y artistas de hoy en día, somos básicamente comunicadores de ideas, por qué no usar esta potente arma para hacer consciencia y dejar mejores aportes a la humanidad?. Aquí dejare al mismo Chirs Jordan con un texto literal.

Intolerable Beauty: Portraits of American Mass Consumption

"Exploring around our country’s shipping ports and industrial yards, where the accumulated detritus of our consumption is exposed to view like eroded layers in the Grand Canyon, I find evidence of a slow-motion apocalypse in progress. I am appalled by these scenes, and yet also drawn into them with awe and fascination. The immense scale of our consumption can appear desolate, macabre, oddly comical and ironic, and even darkly beautiful; for me its consistent feature is a staggering complexity.

The pervasiveness of our consumerism holds a seductive kind of mob mentality. Collectively we are committing a vast and unsustainable act of taking, but we each are anonymous and no one is in charge or accountable for the consequences. I fear that in this process we are doing irreparable harm to our planet and to our individual spirits.

As an American consumer myself, I am in no position to finger wag; but I do know that when we reflect on a difficult question in the absence of an answer, our attention can turn inward, and in that space may exist the possibility of some evolution of thought or action. So my hope is that these photographs can serve as portals to a kind of cultural self-inquiry. It may not be the most comfortable terrain, but I have heard it said that in risking self-awareness, at least we know that we are awake."

Texto de DOMUS by Wikipedia

Fotografía por Rosana Fernández / Texto sobre DOMUS por Wikipedia.

A domus was the form of house that wealthy and some middle class families owned in ancient Rome and could be found in almost all the major cities of the Roman Empire. The poor and many middle class Romans were housed in crowded apartment blocks, known as insulae, while the country houses of the wealthy were known as villas. The domus included multiple rooms, and an indoor courtyard and garden, it was elaborately and beautifully laid out. The vestibulum (entrance hall) led into a large courtyard: the atrium, which was the focal point of the domus and contained an altar to the household gods. Leading off the Atrium were cubicula (bedrooms), a dining room triclinium where guests could lie on couches and eat dinner whilst reclining, a tablinum (living room or study) and tabernae (shops on the outside, facing the street).

Un párrafo SUELTO

¿De qué hablan los arquitectos hoy en día?. Hace tiempo que pensé que los arquitectos habiamos perdido el horizonte y que nos estabamos dejando llevar por el deseo de poder y de reconocimiento internacional al estilo de las estrellas de Hollywood, más que por un discurso coherente referente a una cuestión de necesidad y de urgencia actual...

Aquí les dejo un párrafo sacado de un articulo que escribió Sean Griffiths de BD, viene hablando de MIPIM referente a profesionales de bienes raíces y de inversores. Luego dice literalmente algo que me parece muy interesante para reflexionar sobre el discurso de los arquitectos:

¨For some reason, conversations like that seem to cheer me up. Perhaps because subconsciously I recognise that the bursting of the property bubble could be good for architecture, if not for architects. Perhaps architects will stop talking developer speak and go back to talking architect speak. There will be no more talk of “net to gross”, no more describing buildings as “developments” or “properties” and no more talk of “retail offers” or “residential offers” and so on. Perhaps architects will again speak of space, form and housing and shops. It will be a blessed relief...¨