https://elputnam.github.io/FlickeringIcons/
Thus far I have avoided incorporating iconic images into these collages, but I had these images of murals that both my dad and I took, with my version present with my dad looking at it.I am also starting to bring in some of the photographs I took of postcards, as I continue to play with simultaneous perspectives/experiences of place and image making/taking.
After posting about this collage and animation on social media, it was brought to my attention by my PhD supervisor Shannon Rose Ri;ey that to not include icons means erasing something prominent throughout Cuba, as such images are present everywhere. I responded my hesitance to do so because of the romaticisation of revolutionary icons through appropriation. However, Shannon counter argued that I would “be erasing an awful lot if [I] started to weed out the problematic.” I realised then my hypersensitivity to such issues and what I am glossing over or leaving out due to my desires to not offend through appropriation. I believe this gets to the complexity of these images that influenced how I shot them and later go through them and recontextualise them. One incredible thing about this process has been the new meaning that accumulates as I engage with the images. I regret what I did not capture due to extreme self-awareness, but at the same time that my father who did not have such a reflexive impulse did manage to capture around him without such hesitance.
