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Disasters can both be sparked by mankind or the natural processes of our mother earth, however the cohesion between the two separate have lead to unimaginable interactions. I was moved by Mel Chin’s movie of animated illustrations, as it described two events in history sharing the same calendar date of September 11, however separated by 38 years, 1973-2011. Both of the instances are revered as disasters, 9-11-2011, being an attack on America by the terrorist group known as Al-Qaeda and the second, 9-11-1973, being the coup de’ taut backed by the US in which democratically elected government of Salvador Allende seated in Santiago, Chile was forcibly removed from power. It is interesting that two of the most noticeable relationships between the two are the calendar date of each and the rough estimate of life loss. I took away from this short animated film, history is inclined to repeat itself and the date 9-11 is remembered by both Chile and the USA for completely different reasons, however the United States is a player that had a hand in both events.
As I walked around the room another two pieces of art, produced by Kate Kretz, caught my attention. Kretz carefully illustrated two scenes of tornadoes on the end of a spoon tarnished by nothing touching down in the heartland of rural America. She used the most impressive technique of silver pointing on silverware that had tarnished, which is caused by natural exposure to air and moisture. In checking the credentials of Kate Kretz, we learn she is an American artist born in Grove City, PA and was raised in Binghamton, which is located in update New York. After little research in can be noted there have been tornadoes in Binghamton, NY within the last twenty years and the area has had historical accounts of tornadoes touching down dating even further back. Even more evidence to the fact Kretz was exposed to tornadoes growing up can be found in her own quotations at http://www.snyderman-works.com/artists/kate-kretz. In her short testimony as to why she constructs images of impeding catastrophic tornadoes, Kretz notes that, “Emotion is internal weather. Growing up in a highly dysfunctional family, tornadoes in my dreams have always felt like signals of impending doom, hovering on the horizon, a reminder to brace one’s self against the next disaster. Floods feel like overwhelming sorrow.” A point, unnoticed by me when examining these spoons, is Kretz placed these illustrations on common tools for ingestion because she hopes to convey the idea that situations and emotions associated with disasters must sometimes be swallowed because that is our role as human beings. In both of her pieces at the exhibit the overwhelming focal point is the tornado itself, making the surrounding setting seem minuscule. The path of a tornado is almost unpredictable, which means all that lays in its path will be altered by the natural destructive forces of a tornado. A point that should be noted is there were no works by Kretz in the exhibit depicting floods, but a number of her other pieces use flood waters as the focal point.
The State of Emergency exhibit brought together the human element and the recurring uneasiness brought on by disaster. In Chin’s animated film we saw how attacks against humanity by other humans can create different opinions when the role of aggressor and target are swapped in two different disasters. The works by Kate Kretz teach people the duties of humanity even though sometimes they may be hard to swallow.
Here is the url address to Mel Chin’s website for his movie…
http://www.911-911movie.com