challenge:
Create a thought provoking installation that will allow the viewers to interact and contribute to the piece.
SOLUTION:
From the moment we are brought into this world, there is an excessive list of concrete factors that will affect our lives. The majority of factors we have no control over. Our family, gender, social norms, and the weather show just a snip-it of our decided environment, an environment that has the ability to manufacture and mold each individual into the person they are today.
The words written on the glass of the installation are all related to different aspects of people's environment or factors that are out of their control. Phrases such as “parenting” or “culture” are situations that seem out of our hands, are laser cut into the glass or plexi, while “friends” or “location” are inscribed in dry erase marker because we have the ability to change those things if we desire to. These distinctions are made to show that even though you always have a choice on how you allow your environment to affect you, some factors pose as greater challenges than others.
Lastly the mirrors are a reference to the double consciousness that exists in the world. As we compare ourselves to people through outlets such as social media, we are constantly “looking at one's self through the eyes of others,” as W.E.B. DeBois states. We are in conflict between who your environment raised you to be verses who you aspire to be. Dry erase markers were left out with the installation to allow people to interact with the installation and add their own comments and words to the glass panes.