Cleaving Culture
Ziwen Yin
As collective knowledge, beliefs and skills vital to our survival, culture has been learned, inherited and transmitted throughout history. We breathe culture and speak culture, influenced by it while influencing it. In conquest, trade, immigration, the pursuit for freedom and knowledge, culture has been diffused, syncretized, and combined in innumerable ways. To understand the mechanism of the powerful phenomenon that goes by the phrase “Cultural Cleaving”, I will examine its catalysts, obstructions, and its social and ecological impact through ethnographical research and experimentation in various communicative mediums.
I invited 8 students to each read a short paragraph in their native languages or dialects, extracted the tension of cultural cleave and carry it with a relatively old communicative form, to question the hectic way we absorb cultural informations on the Internet.
Inspired by Dadaism’s distinct visual style and critical philosophy, I use collage to critique the prejudice, violence, and misappropriation in cultural cleaving, and further explore the communicative form of language as a representation for culture. I visited several ethnic communities around NYC and collected printed publications in 7 languages.
In my ethnographic interviews, I asked people to bring one or multiple objects to represent their cultural cleaving experiences, and tell the story behind the object(s). Putting cultural cleaving in real life context helps me gained a comprehensive understanding on the forms of cultural cleave, and its impact upon individuals.