Working from Oakland, painter Peter Adamyan is taking on the anthropocene head-on with his series of paintings First World Cargo Cult. Here’s more from the artist via JUXTAPOZ:
“The first version of what would later regrettably be called a ‘cargo cult’ arose in Melanesia, which includes islands like Papua New Guinea and Fiji. When colonists arrived on the islands they brought mass produced goods along with them… These generally egalitarian, hunter-gatherer, lightly agricultural societies had their way of life disrupted by colonialism, globalization, and capitalism and interpreted the production of the cargo as best they could from their [spiritual] understanding of the world. Many in the west may find their lack of understanding of how these goods are manufactured laughable, but I would wager many in western civilization are just as ignorant of the manufacturing process behind many of the products they feel entitled to. From the minerals mined to create their cell phones, the petroleum used for the plastic forks thrown into their take out, and the textiles produced and assembled in sweatshops for the fast fashion world of today, modern society’s exploitation of the world’s resources for cheap cargo has put a heavy burden on the health of our planet and to those less fortunate, forced to earn their living manufacturing and delivering our cheap cargo.
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