This is the end

Umida Ahmedova

Well this is my final semester at KCAI and for my final project I am confronting the end of clay, culture,art and objects. How's that for an ending? I am planning an installation that will further deal with the issues of old world vs new..modernism vs primal...all spoken about in a post-modern way. I am honestly not quite sure where all my ideas are heading and really when you get this lost in concept and theory you really sorta back yourself into a corner..shoot yourself in the foot so to speak. In reality my hands are still in the materials. I am seduced by the starkness of the bone china i am working with. The earthy messiness of the terra cotta. So the vision I have created in my head for this installation was further fed by these photos taken by Uzbek artist Umida Ahmedova. These photos are very similar to the photos I have been obsessively taking in Eastern Europe of the powerful babushkas. To me they are the ultimate symbol of the best things of the old world that should be cherished most but have become all the things least cherished and respected in modern society. So they are my token figures from a past way of living that are here in modern times. They could tell us so much but we don't tend to ask...and really it isn't there responsibility to teach us. We destroyed this world why should they have to heal us in return. Now there world is almost gone and they are left dealing with ours. But all of this is just a speck in time and in the end who knows which culture will predominate. Every civilization eventually passes and in the end we have layers upon layers of things we dig up and have to try and make sense of. Who came first? Who destroyed who? who was more powerful? All of this becomes a confusing and ambiguous mystery when dealing with archaeology and anthropology. Clay has played such a huge role in this. So I am interested in exploring all of this through the symbolic image of a burial mound and praying grievers.