Assemblage Box
With the revolution we had been assigned to study hand in hand with the French revolution, we crafted an assemblage box to compare and contrast the two revolutions. The revolution I was assigned, for both the assemblage box project and the newscast project, was the Chinese Cultural Revolution. Below the picture is an artist's statement, describing every detail we chose to include in the final piece.
Artist's Statement
Kassandra Morse
American, 1996
Olivia Bellavance
American, 1996
Keeping an Eye on the Future, 2012
Wood, paper, porcelain, plastic, clay, metal, cardboard
This assemblage represents the connections between the Chinese Cultural Revolution and the French Revolution. We represented the Rights of Man and The Little Red Book (Quotations From Chairman Mao), both common publications during their respective revolutions. The sparrow represents freedom from the French Government. We chose to separate the box using shelves. Their dark color contrasts with the light background. Also, by choosing to leave a board out of the back of our box we were (metaphorically, of course) leaving a door open to the future, where we will have (hopefully) learned from our mistakes. The lantern and the light simultaneously represent the optimism adopted by Chairman Mao’s followers and their trust in his schemes for the future, as well as representing the “light at the end of the tunnel” that revolutionaries are trying to make it to when they rise up against what is considered normal.
The background consists of photocopied quotes about revolutions, royalty and rudeness, copied out of the International Thesaurus of Quotations, published in 1987. Also in the background are a set of cards: a king, queen, jack and joker. These represent the French royalty, toppled by the lower classes. The joker is the wild card, the lower class and the insiders that would finally influence the uprisings and revolution. The crowned skull represents the guillotined nobles.
American, 1996
Olivia Bellavance
American, 1996
Keeping an Eye on the Future, 2012
Wood, paper, porcelain, plastic, clay, metal, cardboard
This assemblage represents the connections between the Chinese Cultural Revolution and the French Revolution. We represented the Rights of Man and The Little Red Book (Quotations From Chairman Mao), both common publications during their respective revolutions. The sparrow represents freedom from the French Government. We chose to separate the box using shelves. Their dark color contrasts with the light background. Also, by choosing to leave a board out of the back of our box we were (metaphorically, of course) leaving a door open to the future, where we will have (hopefully) learned from our mistakes. The lantern and the light simultaneously represent the optimism adopted by Chairman Mao’s followers and their trust in his schemes for the future, as well as representing the “light at the end of the tunnel” that revolutionaries are trying to make it to when they rise up against what is considered normal.
The background consists of photocopied quotes about revolutions, royalty and rudeness, copied out of the International Thesaurus of Quotations, published in 1987. Also in the background are a set of cards: a king, queen, jack and joker. These represent the French royalty, toppled by the lower classes. The joker is the wild card, the lower class and the insiders that would finally influence the uprisings and revolution. The crowned skull represents the guillotined nobles.