#IBmakingArt

Out of all the artworks that I've seen throughout the exhibit, the one that stood out the most to me was the combination of 84 black and white photos and its title was "89 Huicholes". The artist that created this artwork was Santiago Sierra (born in 1966, Spain). Its full size is 320 x 186 pixels. This piece of art was finished in January, 2006 at Jelisco, Mexico.

The artwork contains 84 black and white pictures of the back of people's heads. Each of them wore different clothes but the most of the women were wearing head covering. The people in the artwork are the Huichol people (aka Huichol Indians). They are indigenous people who live in the Sierra Madre Mountains of Western Mexico. As they have different customs and beliefs than other people, the artist respected their traditions and also showed us the significance of their belief through this artwork. In this artwork, the artist only took pictures of the backs of the people, because they believed that taking the pictures of their faces would mean that part of their souls being taken away. The fact that I could learn something so interesting through the people that I would never know their faces was impressive because I have thought that pictures of people's backs could have delivered a powerful message like this artwork did.

The purpose of this artwork was to inform the audience cultural value of the Huichol people. As Sierra showed us how he respected their belief, he was also "asking" us to perceive openly and appreciate the difference between our culture and their culture. The artist introduced us "his people"; even though they are indigenous people, Sierra showed that he respected them equally instead of discriminating against them just because their beliefs are different from his beliefs. That way, he taught us a significant cultural belief of the Huichol people. 

The 2 main colors that the artist used were black and white. These are the colors that would have high contrast when they go together. Because having the original colors would make these photos become confusing as it would have too many colors because there are various photos, and that would divert the audience's focus to other unnecessary details. In order to direct the audience's attention to the key point of the artwork more effectively, Sierra put these pictures in black and white. The whole artwork seemed to lack something as the end of the last row was empty. The artist created that emptiness as for saying that the pictures will never end and will keep on continuing for many more generations. It could also be said that the last place was for the artist himself as he could see himself being one of them, or it could be anyone of us.