What to do with culture ‘G”? A silent but efficient tool of discrimination within French national education system. Two linoleum cuts to illustrate this issue published in Le Monde‘s weekend edition, Paris, April 14 th, 2012.
Keeping or getting ride of “culture G ‘? A short cut for ‘ general culture’, a sentence that does not have much meaning in American Education. In France it has been an effective on going loophole tool to weed out generations of unprivileged students – regardless if their intellect merits equals the well-heeled one’s— hardly an embarrassment for a country that harbors the republic slogan ” Equality, Fraternity ” – still driven by the same old privilege dynamics promoted by French King Louis’ dynasty. Le Monde titled it ” a rusted selecting tool”. In France, being an able student is not sufficient to get “A’s”, she/his still need to package with some rare ingredients aside the academic course — it is impossible to even be aware of them if not raised in a family that knows the bells and the whistles of it — to be good will never be good ‘enough’, an invisible wall comes as a divider — as a best scenario one may be lucky if looked at in a condescending way…
page, le Monde culture G, “la une”
Being clueless of ‘sophisticated ‘codes made me bare stigmatization, a phenomena that does not stop at school benches! Irony and pure luck provided me with a fertile ground for tackling this assignment . What ever I succeed or I fail, praise or blame “Culture G”!
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original linoleum cut, Culture ” G” la une
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double page, le Monde culture G
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original linoleum cut, le Monde , Culture G for the double page
Even so the linoleum cut has been created as ‘ONE’ single piece, I had to keep in mind that it would split in ‘TWO’ parts in the final printed in a specific layout version on the 2 pages of Le Monde.
The action contrast of the image as been greatly enhance , the idea behind being of making an advantage result of what was set a a starting difficulty.It is important to notice as well that the colors are purposely very vivid in the planning that they will weaken down after the final mass produce printing phase onto the newsprint quality paper support.
Even so it is always interesting to challenge oneself on different avenue, I rather leave this sort of ‘image building’ to designer – as for my point of view this does not truly changes the foundations of my working methods because if the ideas come from the mind, at the end of the day my hands would have still to physically deliver it…I deeply resent this educational approach that leads blindly people to mind oriented versa hand orientated final and only destinations, this absurd behavior would make only unbalanced and therefore dysfunctional and in completed human being, and it is nothing new to say that this gears towards a narrow vision of ‘productivity’ therefore a harm to individual as well as society.
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Creating the original linoleum prints: cutting and printing process
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Le Monde Culture G 2 – linoleum cutting in progress
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Printing Culture G #2
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linoleum cutting-le Monde Culture G la une
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Le Monde Culture G la une – linoleum printing progress
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? drawings, linoleum cuts, photographs and texts copyright Raymond Verdaguer, 2012.
