Response continue

Response continue

I think its important to note that what these two artists are on about is right in the sense that an element perhaps quite sacred and valuably treasured by a certain people should be fundamentally acknowledged prior to one’s own utilization of it—regardless of reasons for using it. I believe that an element dynamically attached to a system in a sacred and profound ways should therefore be treated at least with the same level of value before appropriation. However, I also believe that this act is impossible in that to understand the values attached to it in its original historical and cultural soil is only possible through a certain consciousness shaped, mentally and spiritually coherent with that specific cultural soil of origin.

Hence, we should begin our criticism with the question whether there is any sense of recognition inherent in the process of appropriation. This is a question directed at those looking to utilize a certain fundamental element such as moko to their own personal (and also perhaps cultural) needs. There, we can determine whether there is respect and value inducing some elements of this process. To conclude that people’s appropriation of elements such as moko is purely for fashion is perhaps quite misleading in that such claims needs to be uttered from a context already informed of reasons behind appropriation. For, we might not even know that moko’s disseminations within a popular cultural mechanism (and paradigm) is induced by some senses of respect and value not identifiable from the outset but which perhaps also remains anonymous—I am using the idea of ‘anonymous’ closely to Levians’ interpretation in ‘Existence and Existents’ (1947).

To be cont…