The Other
Artist's Statement
Otherness can be related to all varieties of identity. We all experience challenges regarding group membership or non-membership throughout our lives - in different places and across different time scales. From the momentary feeling of the outsider experienced when entering a new social setting, to lifelong social dynamics centered on identities such as race, class, and gender.
For some of us these barriers are easily overcome, but for many it may be impossible. Frequently, our internal perceptions of self and the social world around us produce these experiences. But often they are engendered by our society’s constructions of tribe - of ‘us and them’.
In this series I am attempting to elicit experiences of ‘otherness’ for the viewer, using iconic Campbell’s Soup cans as a social stand-in. Some represent specific situations where ‘otherness’ is a function of being part of a group that is not a full and equal member of our society. The rest are more generic and represent situations in which any of us may have been, or could find ourselves at anytime.
Interestingly, we all share the common experience of being the ‘Other’.
-Paul Meadow