Ties That Bind

There would I find a settled rest,
while others go and come;
no more a stranger or a guest,
but like a child at home.

-Psalm 23, para. Isaac Watts (1674-1748)

Is it strange  that someone with almost no religious training has several biblical passages memorized?  Maybe not, since many of the old songs and musical arrangements that we learned in chamber choir were based on religious texts or ideas. This particular excerpt is from the end of an arrangement that we sang my senior year of high school.  While I don't recall most of the song, this part of the piece always stuck out as memorable.  Rather than any sort of divine, otherworldly experience, heaven is expressed in warmth and comfort of coming home.  The sense of truly belonging somewhere, seen through the innocent, unjaded eyes of a child.  As depictions of heaven go, this is definitely one of my favorites.

Even though I am a "grown up" now, I still love the thought of going home and being surrounded by my family.  I miss my parents and siblings and I am excited to be flying home for the holidays.  Most places you visit, you usually the need to be on your best behavior, to be entertaining and engaging.  But home is a place where you can just be.  Family sees you at your best and your worst and they still love you.  You don't always agree on things or even like each other, but the bonds of family endure.

DNA.  Deoxyribonucleic acid.  Lots of time little nucleic acids bonded together into a double stranded helical pattern.  Replicating over and over to produce the blueprint for each structure in the body.  It is almost incomprehensible to think that humans share 99.5% of their DNA with chimpanzees, and yet each human has a unique DNA profile that can be distinguished from all other humans.  DNA is both individualizing and encompassing, as is separates (distinguishes) the individual human from their contemporaries while simultaneously connecting humans to all other living organisms on earth.  In this image, a little girl returns home with the skeletal remains of her sister.  Unbreakable invisible bonds of DNA link the girl to what is left of her sister's bones, even though the recognizable features of flesh have been obliterated by decomposition.

DNA offers a powerful tool for identifying individuals and identifying those who we are closest to genetically.  In this case, the little girl is reunited with the remains of her relative combining the shared experiences and memories of family members with the shared genetic inheritance.  In this way, the siblings are able to return home together.

No more a stranger or a guest.

Ipharadisi

Ipharadisi, ikhaya labafile

Ipharadisi, ikhaya labafile

Ipharadisi, ikhaya labafile
Kulapho sophumla khona, Ipharadisi

Ipharadisi, ikhaya labafile

Ipharadisi, ikhaya labafile

Ipharadisi, ikhaya labafile

where all the dead are living
May we one day join them all there, Ipharadisi

The song above is one that I learned during my time in high school chamber choir.  I don't remember the origin or if there was a specific author, but I always found the song comforting.  I suppose Ipharadisi represents some sort of heaven or ghost realm, though an actual translation isn't included in the song.

The image is one that I created in response to a class I took about genocide.  In the aftermath of genocide, a child sifts through human remains in hopes of recognizing family.  For me this idea is both deeply disturbing and surprisingly hopeful.  Reuniting the living and the dead offers a chance for closure, but it also forces the living to accept the reality of loss.  Following mass killings, the remaining community is forced to decide how to engage with the dead.  Although the dead are not recognized as having rights postmortem, the attached meaning and dignity of human life prevents them from ever really being just objects.  Can the living truly understand or come to terms with the dead or death while they are alive?

A War for Hearts and Minds?

Human evolution fascinates me.  The lack of acceptance of evolutionary theory in regards to human development astounds and horrifies me.

I designed this piece to express what I thought was a clear view on evolution.  Basically, the image depicts the evolutionary lineage leading to Homo sapiens, starting with Au. afarensis at the bottom.  Au. boisei is the skull that is placed off to the left and represents an off shoot of the hominin lineage that branches away from the human lineage on a different evolutionary trajectory, eventually becoming extinct.  The skulls that continue up the torso are Homo erectus, followed by archaic Homo sapiens, then Homo sapiens neanderthalensis.  In this depiction, Neanderthals are considered to be a subspecies of Homo sapiens, rather than a separate species, which is still a hotly debated topic amongst paleoanthropologists.

Originally, many were convinced that Neanderthals and humans were biologically distinct species that did not interbreed due to the lack of admixture in mitochondrial DNA sequences of modern humans.  But more recent studies comparing nuclear DNA mixture, suggest the possibility that admixture may have indeed been occurring as modern humans and neanderthals appear to have genetic overlap.

The hand in the upper left corner of the picture is holding an apple, which the girl is reaching for.  In my original interpretation the girl represents modern humans, and evolutionary lineage of hominins is indelibly imprinted fundamental structure of her existence and physical morphology.  The hand represents an unknown omnipotent deity, extending the "fruit of knowledge," although the gesture can be seen as a taunt since there is no way for the girl to actually reach the information.

After finishing the design I quickly, and a bit glibly or maybe snarkily wrote up this description of the piece:

"even with all the evidence supporting an evolutionary path of human origins, the search for supernatural explanations continues with answers danging, forever, just out of reach (2011/Sept. 12)"


It has been several months since I finished the piece and since then I have had found myself re-evaluating my initial description of the work and even the very thought process behind it.  While I still agree with my original plan for the girl depicting human evolution, the relationship between the girl and the hand has bothered me.  Rather than depicting a negative view of God, the hand could instead be culture as a whole including a human drive to understand existence in terms of a divine presence, or even another human passing cultural knowledge on to the next generation.  While some cultural learning may be incorrect or illogical, the adaptation of culture is uniquely human.  


Since most of my training is in biology I sometimes forget the importance of recognizing the importance of culture as an adaptation for humans.  It is easy to criticize what we don't fully understand.  Rather than invoking the imagery of a war between evolution and religion, this piece can simultaneously represent the dual forces of cultural knowledge and biological adaptation that contribute to the modern understanding of the species Homo sapiens sapiens.  If I were asked to describe the piece today I think I would choose this description instead:


"anthropology: a multi-faceted approach to understanding and connecting hearts, minds and morphological origins (2011/Nov. 28)"