Culture is comprised of infinite number of units. It is also extremely unique and personal to oneself world of cultures being interconnected “The form of space – time in which we live, move and have our experience, is itself shaped by the way in which we live, move and have our experiential being, and this our mode of living is called culture in all its historical depths and regional riches.” Consequently, culture is what developed over period of time, thus history is key in creating it. Culture is a personal place, complex, space where your own experiences coexist and interfere, adding up to your persona. Being mixed (my mother is Belarusian, my father’s ancestors are Mongolian), having Slavonic and Asian background, being brought up in an international environment thanks to my parents sending me to international camps, language schools in England , thus growing up with French, Italian, Spanish, German, Chinese, Korean, Singaporean peers and the list goes on and on ,affected me, as I was soaking traditions and habits of other cultures, I found myself not fitting into any and feeling lost. As I was mulling over my persona being lost in this world, I came to the conclusion that culture is not necessary identified by the place you live in but by everything you encounter and take in as this is what shapes ones culture. But identifying those factors seems to be tricky, as it is not on the surface but within. In order tap into that hidden reality, unconsciousness and subconsciousness should be explored.
I feel that since all cultures impact each other at some point, point of balance, where natural elements come together. The idea of unity can be expressed through 4 elements ( based on the idea from On Coming to Be and Passing Away is a treatise by Aristotle): fire, water, air, earth. The concept of classical elements stems from Ancient Greece, it can be traced in most ancient cultures. The main states: solid, liquid, gas, and plasma are almost equivalents to the classical elements of earth, water, air, and fire. Aristotle mentioned a fifth element, aether/quintessence (the space itself). The elements can be expressed through spheres (symbolising globe) (3D printed from transparent material).
Each sphere would have a light, as the room is supposed to be dark. Consequently, the walls are going to have images (every image is going to be a mix of various photos of trees, each combination would stand for one of the four parts of the world, thus each image of mixed trees should include those kinds that are conventional for that part of the world: (cherry trees, bamboo trees for Asia and etc.).Trees can represent nations, as they are key in many cultures, from ancient times believed to be homes for spirits and sometimes ancestors were believed to take a form of a tree as a new stage in their existence in a new world. Moreover their strong systems of roots represent a powerful set of connections, which leads to the idea of all cultures being connected.As the room is going to be dark, the only way to see those ”parts of the world” is by bringing all the spheres (elements together) to the each wall with the image representing continent. Subsequently, the entire space symbolises that by finding that balance(touching point between nations) you can place yourself in the space and in the world, alongside suggesting that darkness stands for a dreamlike state and lightening something up is an equivalent to exploring subconsciousness.
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