http://www.fairfaxtimes.com/articles/culture-house-celebrates-fairfax-county-s-diversity/article_ee284c12-dbfe-11e5-ae2b-5b93ae9845f6.html








Fairfax County is one of the most diverse in the United States, and this diversity, which augments its cultural richness, continues to grow.

Based on county data, 92 different languages are spoken, the 16th highest recorded in the country. According to the Fairfax County Public School System that number may be even higher. Its data says that, rather than English, nearly half of the students enrolled in its elementary schools speak some 170 other languages at home.

Other county data indicates that 34 percent of the residents in the Fairfax and Falls Church areas speak a language other than English at home.

And within the past 25 years Fairfax’s “non-white/minority” population has jumped from 25 to 50 percent.

This diversity is the inspiration for a new, exceptionally interactive, mixed-media sculpture installed at the Workhouse Arts Center in Lorton through April 3.

Titled “Culture House,” it is the creation of internationally renowned contemporary sculptor, Foon Sham, a Springfield resident and professor of art at the University of Maryland.

“Sham’s ‘Culture House’ gives a physical representation of the diversity of people and language represented in Fairfax County,” Brett Johnson, director of visual arts at Workhouse, noted. The Workhouse’s first commissioned work, it also “builds on our existing commitment to diverse programming and community engagement.”

An immigrant himself, Sham, who was born in Hong Kong and first emigrated to the United States as a college-age student to study art in California, deeply connects with the ideas surrounding “Culture House” and its celebration of the county’s rich demographic mix.

In a recent conversation, he said, “It struck me that I’m part of that group. … There are a lot of diverse people around, but I don’t see them. I hope this gets them involved.”

Sham elaborated in his artist statement that he wanted to create a work “that would allow citizens of different ethnic groups to participate by contributing a piece of their culture.”

He also proposed, “I will construct an architectural structure that would ensemble all these elements as a whole.”

The installation that Sham ultimately constructed revolves around a room-size and maze-like grouping of wood-panels that allow visitors to freely walk through and directly interact with its elements.

After months of person-to-person research by Sham to get the languages “exactly correct,” the “Culture House” panels were laser-cut with a series of simple, trigger words and questions—such as “how do you feel about Fairfax County?”--in a “beautiful variety” of languages. Also included were a few much-used contemporary text abbreviations.

The panels also are covered with black chalkboard paint to allow visitors to respond in their various languages.

When the panels become filled, Sham, who also considers them archival material, “documentation of the county’s cultural past,” said he would simply add more panels.

Functioning as a tangible bar graph, too, the size of each panel relates to the number and percentages of the languages spoken in the county.

Scattered around on shelves, attached to the panels, are a variety of foreign-language dictionaries and other books. The dictionaries not only represent the county’s different languages but also enable viewers to translate the responses of their diverse neighbors.

The dictionaries have a profoundly personal meaning for Sham. They pay tribute to his late father, a university lecturer and translator in Hong Kong, who passed away in 2000 and loved to collect dictionaries in both English and Chinese. One of the tallest panels is inscribed with a Chinese poem Sham’s father wrote to him in 1988.

“I’d kept the scroll,” he said, “and translated it visually. … My father would love this exhibit, but just putting his collection in the exhibit is very satisfying. On a personal level, I am very happy.”

Hanging overhead is a grouping of handpainted umbrellas created by artists of different ethnicities. The eye-catching umbrellas are hung upside-down to maximize their visual impact.

Sham explained that the idea for the umbrellas was inspired by a trip to Shanghai in 2012. While there, he noticed parents matchmaking for their children by gathering in a park where they would display umbrellas on which they had taped their son’s and daughter’s resumes.

Although not something he would do to his own very American adult son and daughter, “it was visually inspiring … and enabled the [umbrella] artists to voice their ethnicity as well as their creativity.”

“Culture House” is one part of a greater diversity initiative advanced by the Arts Council of Fairfax County and funded by a $40,000 grant, awarded in 2015 by the National Endowment for the Arts.

According to Linda Sullivan, president and CEO of the Arts Council, the focus of this initiative is to bring more diverse groups under the umbrella of the council. She said, “We offer a whole plethora of support; we have a lot of services.”

Sullivan further explained: “We realized that a lot of ethnic and minority arts organizations and groups doing some arts are not coming to the council for support.”

In addition to funding a variety of cultural diversity projects, like “Culture House,” and holding a diversity forum last fiscal year, the initiative is actively seeking to identify more such groups, making the council “more representative of Fairfax’s diversity.”

So far, an excited Sullivan said, the council’s initiative has uncovered 50 new ethnic and minority organizations doing arts programming in Fairfax.

Another key part of the initiative is to encourage known organizations to think about partnering for diversity. “We’re looking for many ways to make this happen,” Sullivan said, citing the “Culture House” project as a prime example.

Workhouse’s director of visual arts for the past four years, Johnson, who also participates with Sham on the Arts Council’s advisory committee, said he has long wanted to bring Sham, who is both a sculptor and educator, to Workhouse.

Though Sham has previously integrated interactive elements in earlier sculptures, the “Culture House” project, Johnson suggested, in a conversation following the installation’s Feb. 13 opening reception, is “unique” and perhaps his most interactive work.

He said, “I’d love to see that room get fuller by adding more surfaces. … It’s like a computer chat board. It’s a conversation in real space with real neighbors.”

Like Johnson, Sham sees “Culture House” as a “new artistic challenge … a more graphic approach” and an expansion of his previous forays into sculptural interactivity.

He cited a sculptural tribute to his mother after her death in 2000 from cancer as a parallel and impactful early effort—and, like “Culture House,” profoundly personal and culturally related.

Titled “Sea of Hope,” it was inspired by a Chinese funerary rite. An idea initiated by his sister, a wooden, boat-like form, raised on metal rods, is surrounded, river-like, by hundreds of rice-paper “spirit boats.” Directly involving others, each paper boat was made by a different person, and each was inscribed with a different personal message.

Sham’s 2007 interactive work at the Greater Reston Arts Center (GRACE), “Flow: The Landscape of Migration,” was another parallel inspiration for the “Culture House” concept.

Filling the entire GRACE gallery space, Sham created a sculptural “landscape” of cones that represented the five essential elements of the Chinese culture: metal, wood, fire, water and earth. Viewers were asked to participate by placing related items around the cone’s “flowing lowlands.”

Among the many things he learned from the ‘Flow’ piece, which he has applied to “Culture House,” is “not to change what people contribute.”

The “Culture House” installation’s interactivity, though key, is only one of its appeals, according to Sham, who like Johnson, is optimistic about its drawing power.

“People seem to respect the way it looks,” he said, “as well as what it communicates. … The whole point is that you get involved. ”

Talks are underway, Sham noted, to reinstall “Culture House” at the Fairfax County Government after it closes at Workhouse on April 3.

Sham, what a name for a guy getting grants to produce rubbish like this.

I scrolled down first to see how long it would be for reading.............

FUCK THAT SHIT!!!!!!!!!!

TL;DR

Multiculturalism is the biggest sham ever perpetrated onto mankind.

Just ask the Romans how it worked for them....

All the people who've been raped, robbed, and killed by our beloved illegals should derive much comfort from this exhibit.