Project 2 Vimeo Link and Artist Statement

LINK



Many people today would say there’s an epidemic of divorce sweeping the nation in this day and age; marriage has almost a 50% failure rate. So what makes today so different that causes spouses to drop each other on seemingly a whim? In my personal opinion, while marriage may be given up on moreso than decades before, love continues to fluctuate in much the same way. People who lived back in the day held very true to tradition, regardless of personal feelings, so they often stayed with their partners regardless of whether or not the marriage was agreeable. And thanks to the advent of feminist ideals and other social progression, divorce has become more acceptable nowadays. But even so, it doesn’t soften the impact it has on the people involved. My parents’ divorce was the catalyst for a lot of future personal issues, and even now when I tell myself and others that I’ve been over it, it still leaves me confused and sad and guilty. There’s a lot of blame and horrible accusations thrown around, and there’s always two sides to the story, depending on who you ask.

            With this project, I wanted to show the major steps of a relationship, from its start to its failure, using the objects on a kitchen counter, and one of the partner’s interactions with them. The ambiguity, vagueness, and cliché events make it a very universal depiction of your typical relationship and divorce. Emphasis is put on the deciphering of objects and their meanings, as well as the body language of the person being seen.

            Since you can’t tell what the person is saying, how the arguments go off-screen, and everything else that goes on in-between, the decline of the relationship seems rather trivial and unnecessarily dramatic, which is the perfect, and very accurate, outsider’s perspective. I ask myself why my parents split up. What my mom tells me seems so pointless and easily fixed. My dad tells me nothing. I don’t think anyone else would be able to understand what went on between any couple to any true extent. And in the end, the whole thing just ends up looping around again, whether through the same person, or just society as a whole. And unfortunately, the people caught in the middle suffer in silence, and are often forgotten in the midst of it all.

            I am all for the right to divorce your spouse without any sort of difficulties regarding the law, simply because people should definitely have the option to do so. It could potentially be very necessary. But because it has become a fact of everyday life, it’s something you see in everyday life. We know all the signs, the problems, and the inevitable result. It’s a new perspective to see it from a stranger’s point of view.