This Golden Dawn

I am creating a photography project called “This Golden Dawn: A Spiritual Precipice. America in 2025,” which is an attempt to provide a solution to cultural stagnation and division as well as create a conversation around the United States stance on the human rights violations occurring to Uyghurs in Xinjiang, China. I will start by provoking awareness of spiritual openness and creative possibility and break viewers away from the algorithmic reality of our social media focused society, which often leads us to feel disconnected or in a sense “stuck.” The idea of the “frontier” or a space that is beckoning exploration is something I want to portray in a fresh, exhilarating, yet also nuanced way. I want to also show the reality of cultural eclecticism in colonial society and use particular lights and atmospheres to suggest a birthing rather than a loss of possibility. I will explore various overlooked aspects of American society and establish dialogues with various communities, especially Indigenous peoples, whose voices are often ignored. Then, I want this project to lead into several more installations that deal with the conflict between cultural essentialism and creation in respect to different diasporas and critique the foundations of identity politics and separation. I want to do a series of portraits that gives people the option to express their identity through traditional attire and activities and also give people the option to pose nude, or in a way that suggests that it is valid to invent one’s own culture, if they feel in some way devoid of cultural belonging. This part would be organized in a way that would not intermingle these fundamentally different ways of embracing identity in an offensive way, but respectfully offer a way of dealing with indigenous alienation as well as settler confusion. It is a way of questioning the limits of traditional cultural embodiment and the important potential of seriously considering cultural creation. It also portrays the importance of Indigenous contemporaneity and active involvement in politics as well as a critique of settler cultural passivity and consumption. I would also like to include an offshoot of this dialogue that focuses on sex workers and periphery psychology. That is to say, the life of a particular person is not necessarily what you think it ought to be. I want to focus on the activities that occupy sex workers when they are not working. The idea of exceeding boundaries, preconceptions and stereotypes is crucial to this project. Lastly, I want to create a dialogue about the United States relationship with the Muslim community as well as the future of our diplomacy concerning the repression of Uyghurs in the Chinese province of Xinjiang. The photo series will initially question the prevailing idea that frontier ideologies are invalid and then reject ideas of cultural separation and essentialism. I want to inspire exploration and suggest to people that they are inextricably connected to the land. Then I will critique the United States passive and hypocritical stance on China’s genocidal policies. As part of the exhibition, I want to include a portrait series of George W. Bush, his wife, Laura Bush, as well as Dick Cheney, who lead the military response to the attacks on 9/11. The violence that we, as Americans caused in the Middle East has a legacy which cannot be erased or omitted. Then, I want to include a portrait series of Uyghur immigrants as well as an installation that offers the possibility for a conference about creating an effective United States response to the situation in Western China that goes beyond just cultural critique. Lastly, I want to create a video art piece that is an inspiring collaboration between Muslim artists, musicians, fashion designers and skateboarders that is a positive collaborative response to the debilitating effects of terror, genocide, Islamophobia as well as cultural and political passivity. I wish this final piece to be a creative gesture that offers an alternative to the tendency to respond to cultural difference with fear and separatism. Instead, the idea is to embrace cultural dialogue. Or, how about we can create something beautiful together. This will also focus on a cultural and strategic partnership with Cameroon, which is culturally significant because it also deals with the threat of Islamic terror groups. Furthermore, the word Cameroon is similar to camera, and the connection brings us closer to the idea of passive and active engagement, which is an idea essential to photography. Cameroon is so unique yet also connected to us through the history of the slave trade and its strategic and cultural similarities in regards to colonization, black history and Islamic extremism. The focus on beauty and diversity is so important for this project. Color will be a major part of this piece, as the use of color in Cameroon’s garments is stunning. I also want to include a symphonic element that matches the movement and speed of the piece. Speed and changing environments is a key element in the piece, which relates to the idea of war. But a warrior is not a killing machine. To be sensitive and emotionally receptive also makes a society stronger, and that is something that Africa is very good at. So, these ideas of sensitivity, love, fear, and policing are interrelated when it comes to the threat of extremism. However, in our global society the threat also involves the terror of the genocidal state that is the PRC. Thus, this video will involve embodiments of vulnerability and love on both sides of the political and religious divide. And the skateboarding will be a commentary on masculine responsibility, physical prowess and agility which is necessary for war, which is often necessary in protecting vulnerable people. A warrior is skilled, and he must be willing to kill and possibly be killed. But at the same time he or she feels emotions and perceives beauty. Thus, war is not inhumane. It is essential for our survival.

Ultimately, my intention is to inspire people to feel creatively more free and unburdened by stereotypes and also instigate a stronger response to the human rights violations in Xinjiang. How can we feel free if there is currently a genocide of an entire ethnic minority?