Two Sides Of The Shore

 Well... I had an interesting term that's for sure. I had my longest ever unit in a class and now this was my shortest. In this unit for rhetoric we had a total of three classes. Though we didn't learn about many new concepts, we attempted to convert old ones to a new format. This is "RhetorART" an art piece done by yours truly in an attempt to represent a current world problem: Lack of clean water or water in general. But I cant leave it there and go into my artists statement because I haven't hit my teachers minimum word count for the intro, so to describe the project, my class was asked to create an art piece representing a major world issue and explain the rhetoric behind it.

Two Shores, CH 2020
 

This piece was made with the intention of bringing more awareness to a lack of knowledge. The information that needs to be more widely recognized is that many people take most things for granted. Things like easily accessible food, electricity, freedom of speech and religion, access to medication and medical assistance, access to transportation, access to education, access to plumbing, getting sleep, and positive mental health. All of that can be discussed in detail and most apply to the USA (Where I'm from) but none of those are portrayed in this art piece right? That's because it depicts something that very well might be worse off than any of the above; Water. Not millions but billions of people lack access to secure drinking water, and almost double that lack secure sanitation services. There has been plenty of support in getting proper amounts of water to the people of the world, many conferences, and two "international decades of 'water for life'" but it wont be enough until everyone has this basic right. I'm not an expert on this topic but I know that some sense of equity needs to be applied, not everyone need the same amount of water but everyone needs their fill to survive so the distribution of resources should spread to having more sent to places in more need and less sent to places better off than others. It may feel wrong to give more to some and less to others but need should be scaled. No one needs to have an overwhelming surplus of one resource if somewhere else has a shortage of the same thing. That may have been long-winded but now is the time for an explanation of the depiction. The entire thing is a digital collage I created, the left side of the piece shows images of clean water and a side profile silhouette of a woman. This woman represents the people who take advantage of their resources but also take it for granted. As for the right side, its filled with images of dirty, polluted water, currently unsuitable for consumption.  There is also a silhouette of a mans side-profile, he represents everyone unable to utilize the same amount of water as the left. He represents everyone in need, he represents the needs themselves, and he represents the earth itself that groans in agony at the great amount of pollution that saturate it. In conclusion, its a piece to inform and shock. 

I hope this message finds you well because right now has been a horrendously hard time. At the time of finishing this project we are all still in quarantine from COVID19 and mental health is crumbling for many, but I hope reading this was more of a break for you than a chore have a good night, day, or whatever time you are reading this. 

-CDH               

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