Artist Statement
Activism Through Social Media
This monument is dedicated to the activism through social media. I wanted to do something showing the work of people’s voices on twitter, facebook, Instagram ect. due to the fact that they are sometimes overshadowed by the bad, and wrong things that are presented through social media. The monument design I have made are two large cylinders placed on the edge of a street. I wanted to have a piece showing some sort of live feed of activist tweets or posts being sent out at the time. I had the idea of the cylinders because of things I have seen in everyday life. I based these cylinders/poles off of the advertisement poles in Berlin, Germany that are presented in the same way but with advertisement going around it on a round electric board. I wanted it to be in a city like environment to show the multicultural idea of how these posts are designed and monitored in the same way. I originally wanted to have other objects such as the poles, based off of the Berlin advertisements, like a New york subway stop, an English telephone box, a Nigerian mailbox, a Chinese advertisement, and other culturally well known city objects to go around the original piece. This would show the multicultural side of the piece in how everyone affects the social media’s power. This piece is supposed to be easily accessible as it is an ordinary street corner, and I have many small figures placed to look as though they were looking up at the work as the moisture activism tweets go by. This is not a memorial to any passed thing but more a monument to ongoing things, so throughout one’s stay whilst observing the piece nothing is there to mourn anything. I want people to pay attention to the work and just read what they see.