Mexican-Canadian artist Rafael Lozano-Hemmer kicks off the final day of IdeaFestival 2013 by talking about the intersection of art and community.
Lozano-Hemmer creates interactive, public art installations, in which participants can both "observe and be observed." An installation in Australia, which displays shadows of portraits on a large wall, is both playful and dark, allowing people to distort their own shape and size and interact with other shadows people. (Maybe you need to see this to understand).
He sees art as a powerful social tool, with an obligation to speak truth to power. In a 2008 project, Lozano-Hemmer set up a megaphone in Zocalo Square in Mexico City, where 300 protesters had been massacred in 1968. Citizens would come up to the megaphone to voice opinions about anything from government corruption, tributes to loved ones lost, and even marriage proposals. The voices were broadcast live, giving voice to an often-silenced public.
Yet another example of the social implications of a creative mind.
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