John Lau – cultural sustainability (Tallulah Tarnowska)

The Better Lives lecture I attended that really stood out for me personally was John Lau on Cultural Sustainability. “culture is innately part of us and our development, where we are from is just one part of our culture” – this statement really drew me back and gave me a new perspective on the word culture, I had always thought of culture as someones birth right by wherein they were born geographically. Culture is a huge part of life and until now I didn’t even realise that culture can be learnt throughout life as we grow and develop as people alongside one another. Lau went on to speak of a specific example, the infamous Marie Antoinette, known visually for her fashion choices, what I did not know was the back story of her original culture, simple clothed Austrian heritage – when she became queen of France, the French wanted a queen who looked like one! Time goes by and the French Revolution comes to fruition, Marie Antoinette is beheaded and her symbol of over the top dressing was cut from French culture, their new idea of beauty actually looked into the past for inspiration from the Greeks and their Empire Line dresses and their long meaningful history which was very political. This I would come to learn, was a great example of Zeitgeist – ideals and beliefs that motivated actions of the society at that time – this sort of idea of things falling into place through fate or ‘right time right place’. Another great, and quite different example Lau gave was, of Jean-Michel Basquiat, who in his childhood had an accident causing his mother to give him the book grays anatomy – along with this collision of capitalism, cartoons/graffiti and drugs on the rise in the 1980’s, Basquiat’s style was born – a Zeitgeist in his own right, causing massive influence in the art world and general society. Basquiat was a threshold or example, for young or new artists believing in their dreams of being heard by the public. The idea of influence these days is at an all time high with the use of social platforms, and so in terms of cultural sustainability and its accessibility you’d think that cultural sustainability is easily influenced onto the world – but the sadder truth is to make sustainability readily available for all cultures, it is going to take a massive effort on all of our behalves. Thank you to John Lau for opening our eyes onto the reality of cultural sustainability and how we as individuals can use our art to make a stand, and allow gates to open for the rest of cultures to be heard and sustainable.