Ian Bunn | Political & Popular Culture Arts

Heidi-Jane Esakov the South African researcher at the Afro-Middle East Centre, a Johannesburg-based think-tank, has published an article on Aljazeera titled ‘Israeli policies of dispossession reminiscent of South African apartheid’ discussing how plans to displace bedouins in Israel are reminiscent of the forced removals of blacks in Sophiatown. Esakov states “During the forced removals of the South African suburb of Sophiatown in 1955, around 65,000 residents were moved and “dumped in matchbox houses” in black townships. Only a few years before that, in 1948, Bedouins of Israel’s Naqab/Negev region, who Israel had not expelled, were also forcibly moved “from their ancestral lands into a restricted zone called the Siyag (literally, ‘fenced in’)”. And, just as Sophiatown was completely bulldozed, the Negev village of Al-Arakib was recently razed to make way for a Jewish National Fund forest. As a South African it is particularly difficult not to see the stark parallels between the experiences of black South Africans under apartheid and of Palestinians today. …The villagers of Umm al-Hiran and Al-Arakib are citizens of Israel: Its Arab citizens that Israel prides – and parades – as proof of its democracy. They are, however, not Jewish, a critical determiner of who is entitled to what land and how rights are allocated. …It is not for the oppressor to decide how the oppressed should understand their oppression. But, how is whites-only different to Jewish-only? And, if the forced removal of 30,000 Bedouins to make way for 250,000 Jews is not “systematic oppression… with the intention of maintaining the regime”, what, then, is it?”

Inspired by Aljazeera ow.ly/f5wnA image source Twitter ow.ly/f5wKR

Tarak Barkawi the American Senior Lecturer in War Studies believes that Tony Blair and Desmond Tutu share a vision of world politics as an epic struggle between good and evil, in an article he published on Aljazeera titled ‘Invasions and evasions: The Tutu-Blair paradox’. Barkawi states “Retired Archbishop Desmond Tutu refused recently to appear with former prime minister Tony Blair at the Discovery Invest Leadership Conference in Johannesburg. Tutu did not want to speak alongside a leader who had lied. “If leaders may lie, then who should tell the truth?” asked Tutu. The lie in question was the formal US-UK justification for the invasion of Iraq: that “intelligence assessments” had established that Saddam Hussein possessed weapons of mass destruction (WMD). …Tutu accuses Bush and Blair of “destabilising” and “polarising” the world “to a greater extent than any other conflict in history”. …accuses the Anglo-American leaders of being “playground bullies”. He even blames them for the current situations in Iran and Syria. …However, allowing finance capital and big banks to range unchallenged and unregulated certainly has cost Western governments vast amounts of treasure. As for blood, just how much sweat and tears, hopelessness and stunted lives, among millions suffering in the Great Recession of recent years, equate to some few thousands killed and displaced by petty warlords? Desmond Tutu needs to reconsider just who the great purveyors of lies and human suffering are in the contemporary world. The rest of us need desperately a new political and ethical language by which we can equate the suffering caused by the economy with that inflicted by force of arms.”

Inspired by Aljazeera ow.ly/dEkHg image source New School ow.ly/dElT5

He's really the Einstein of nonviolence (March 24th 2012)

Jonathan Edward Schell the 68 year old US author in an interview with Andy Kroll for Tomdispatch tackled the question of what exactly is nonviolent action? Schell stated “…I was led to see that there were forms of nonviolent action that could unravel and topple the most violent forms of government ever conceived — namely, the totalitarian. This went entirely against the conventional wisdom of political science, which taught that force is the ultima ratio, the final arbiter; that if you had superior weaponry and superior military power you were the winner… So I asked myself what exactly is nonviolent action? What is popular protest? How does it work? …a peaceful protest led by Mohandas Gandhi at the Empire Theater in Johannesburg, South Africa, on September 11, 1906. It’s rare that you can date a social invention to a particular day and meeting, but I think you can in this case.  Gandhi called himself an experimenter in truth. He’s really the Einstein of nonviolence.…before the Occupy movement here… We didn’t know how to drop a bucket into our own hearts and come up with the necessary will to do the things that needed to be done.”

Inspired by Andrew Kroll http://ow.ly/9AXSQ image source David Shankbone http://ow.ly/9AYzV

After losing its opening match (July 12th)

This digital photo manipulation art work is premised on the basis that Pop art in its beginnings, freeze-framed what consumers of popular culture experienced into iconic visual abstractions. With the advent of the techno age, visual information circulates in such quantities, so rapidly and exponentially, that to comprehend a fraction of it all becomes a kind of production process in itself.  Hence this work considers fragmented elements of Popular Culture through an artistic and conceptual exploration of specific people and events of the day.
www.ianbunn.com

Dutch boy a sole survivor (May 13th)

This work is about iconic people, places and events of our day.  Recorded visually through daily compilations of manipulated digital images, the work is posted online and disseminated via online media and social networks. The works are diaristic in nature, that metaphorically record a spectator’s experience of the contemporary digital age.  The resulting work intentionally has a painterly aesthetic acknowledging the artists historical painting practice. 

Adapting Pop Art’s notion of mass media imagery into a context of the contemporary digital age, the work draws on a myriad points of reference. Utilizing fractured images to provide an allusion to the digital noise pounding away daily into our sub consciousness.  The work diverges from the traditional Pop Art notion of a pronounced repetition of a consumer icon, instead this work focuses on the deluge of contemporary digital content. The compilation of the fragmented imagery is vividly distractive, not unlike cable surfing or a jaunt through Times Square.

The work is premised on the basis that Pop art in its beginnings, freeze-framed what consumers of popular culture experienced into iconic visual abstractions. With the advent of the techno age, visual information circulates in such quantities, so rapidly and exponentially, that to comprehend a fraction of it all becomes a kind of production process in itself.  Hence this work considers fragmented elements of Pop Culture through an artistic and conceptual exploration of specific people and events of the day.

www.ianbunn.com