An utopian theme by Élisa Ganivet
If the Individual is molded by whatever Culture from its own History, each Culture is conveyed, whether you like it or not, by many codes and symbols which come up from Values of the country he grew up. Moreover, the History of this country – included in a balance of power – is often written by the „Winners“. From all of this, the Perception that the Foreign has, can be influenced.
The Culture of a nation is rooted in a long history of values, of habits and customs. Thereby the Territory is tangible as it is thought, worked and lived. Utopia is the non-place which doesn´t touch the Reality making it a difficult living space and therefore very fragile. If we take the Mannheim´s Idea that “a state of mind is utopian when it is incongruous with the state of reality within which it occurs…” ; certainly, the personal way of thinking could tend to a permanent disagreement – not really dangerous to Others – but when it comes to the vision regarding the foreign Other, then the ground can be slippery. Here the territory is generated by some Imaginary and Fantasy special modes. One culture can be perceived through so many parameters that do not necessarily match to the Reality, that reveal a distortion of the Reality. If according to Lévi-Strauss : “the diversity of human cultures is behind us, around us and ahead of us” , it is from the exchange, from a direct approach to these sensitive values that we amortize on a newly enriched Interpretation and probably readjusted one. This collage of items metaphorizes the Utopia of a Culture still in progress, since a constant outside interference and exchanges.
A coalitation of Cultures leads to a universal thought? Is it possible? Are we going to speak about Hybridity, as a global tendency? Or on the contrary, about an irresistible need to define one Identity? Or necessarily from both sides… Or just anything of that…
 | Doctor of Philosophy, Art Historian, Documentary and Cultural Engineer. Elisa began her career as a cultural manager in 2003, organizing Arts Exhibitions such as “Rembrandt: an inspiration for Goya”, “Calder, the form and the dream”, “Picasso, Tribute to a bullfighter”, “Miró, garden of the wonderful things”, “Pasionate Dali”. Besides the Great Modern Masters, her vocation is to promote contemporary artists to whom she believes and to those matching with her line of research on utopia and borders; therefore she produces events in this direction. |