Jena’s Work

After Jena’s grad presentation I remembered an image and story I had run across recently.  An oil sheik in the United Arab Emirates had his name dug into an island he owns large enough to be viewed from space.  The only way to  see the work Hamad commissioned is through google earth which was the immediate connection I made to Jena’s pieces.  The self obsession and pride also started to make me think of the binaries Jena was talking about.  Such hubris I usually associate with the west. Our culture is programmed, I think, to view the Arabian world as alien and opposite to our values.  So while the average conception is we are proud and arrogant the it is implied in binary thought that rest of the world is humble and respectful.  Arabia in general seems to embody many of the contradictory binaries Jena was addressing.  The Arabian elite and royal families are profiting hugely from selling their countries resources in very western form creating a huge division between the poor and rich.   A massive division of wealth is deeply connected, in my mind, to western imperialism.  However it is occurring in a very eastern, traditional, conservative, and religious  part of the world.  I think this earthwork challenges a lot of the thoughtless subconscious ideas formed in the us vs them way of thinking.