Dried Rose Petals

The dried rose petals represents body through time because it is the last stage of a rose in its life cycle. The rose grows into a flower bud, then bloom, and finally wilts and dies. To reach the wilting stage, the rose had been through all the other stages in time. This image is a symbol because it represents something abstract, such as old age, past love, or memories. The meaning of dried rose petals is not inherent, thus it must be learned. Furthermore, the meaning of a rose could be changed relative to the factors such as the setting and time.
K.L.

Eugene Onegin Opera Ticket

The opera took place in a certain period of time in the past, September 2013. This ticket is a representation of a tangible body that has passed through time into the present and represents a past experience. This image is an indexical sign because it represents a particular experience in the past that is directly connected to the object.
K.L.

The Carrie Mae Weems exhibition, the Three Decades of Photography and Video, at the Metropolitan Museum of Arts focused on societal issues that affect marginalized individuals such as people of a certain race, gender, and class. She predominantly used people of color in her photographs. For example, Weems’ most well-known photography collection, the Kitchen Table, explored the relationship between women and children, women and men, and women and other women through the use of African-American subjects. In her Colored People series, again, she used African-American subjects to express issues circulating around race. Weems’ take on people of color is peculiar in that she used highly saturated overlay colors over the original photos to create, literally, people of various colors, such as bright purple, blue, yellow, and pink.

Another collection that was exhibited in this gallery was her Africa (1993) collection. The photographs showed from minimalistic styled homes to ruins that are covered rubbles. These black and white photographs were accompanied by texts that spoke of biblical figures, specifically, Adam and Eve. The text, however, is not from the scriptures. Instead, it was a creative narrative about the times between Adam and Eve met, how they met, and what happened after they met.

Overall, the exhibition was impactful in that it raised awareness about various issues regarding marginalized sections of our society. Because we are aware and have identified these issues, we have the potential to step forward to make necessary changes.