Southern New Hampshire University HUM 100 Project 1 Artifact Chart
Although you will work on various assignments throughout the course to support you in completing this assignment, this project is not due until Week 6.
Artifact
What is your chosen artifact? Include a link to or a picture of the artifact.
I. Describe the artifact in detail. For instance, how would you describe it to someone who could not see it?
Raise up statue by Hank Willis Thomas
Raise up is a life-sized statue of 10 bald black men with their arms raised, and their bodies encased in cement.
The medium used is bronze and cement. The bronze can be interpreted as the skin tone of the men, and it also gives the illusion that the men are sweating. The cement, is viewed in such a way that it appears that the men are drowning or suffocating.
The Raise up statue was created by "Hank Willis Thomas" who got his inspiration from a 1960's photograph by South African photographer Ernest Cole. This photo is Iocated in his book titled "House of Bondage". The picture was taken "During a humiliating group medical examination, where 13 nude men are herded through a string of doctors' offices." During the sixties South Africa was still under the law of Apartheid, so Cole would often use covert tactics such as working without flash and sneaking his camera inside lunch bags whenever he visited mines or prisons. (Kermeliotis, 2015, par. 14)
Southern New Hampshire University
1. Choose elements of the artifact that you believe are most important to how you experience it and explain why. For instance, what particularly catches your senses or makes vou want to keep experiencing it? Does the choice of medium impact your
experience?
The statue is a visual object. You cannot physically taste it, and there is no sound that emerges from it. When you experience it through sight, you get a better understanding of the feelings the victims and their families might have felt. I experienced an overwhelming feeling of sadness, bitterness, fear, and humiliation, when I first saw it, because I know that even though the posture of the men in the statue is of surrender, their outcome may still be death.
This statue is not something that I would want to view or experience on a continual basis, because of the constant reminder of the inequities and brutalities placed upon African Americans especially the men, that still exist in our culture today. However, it is a piece of art that is clearly imitating history, and the choice of using bronze and cement as the medium makes it a true to life tasteful imitation of the African American man. The bronze representing the beautiful skin of a black man and the cement representing his power and strength. It should be seen, studied and viewed by as many people as possible, for the sake of helping to not repeat the mistakes of the past.
Assumptions about your artifact
IIl.