Inspiration <<-->> Cultural Appropriation
By wandering link kismet I landed today on a free blog design site and clicked into this design, Mahakali. A while ago I was reading about Kali and I was drawn to the strong symbolism and female energy of this goddess. Then I stumbled upon the design from dreamLogic. I loved it. I loved how they talked about the inspiration of their design and thought, gee, this would be great for my blog (company branding be damned.)
Then another part of my brain took over. As an American living in a global world, particularly one that works with people all over the world, I wondered if I was culturally appropriating that which is sacred to others.
The net-enabled world creates new possibilities. Remix, mashups, working across time and distance allow the opportunity to "borrow" from any culture. For those of us that work across these boundaries, what should our practices be?
How do we "remix" deep respect? Should we? I don't know. What do you think?
Tags: culture, appropriation
posted by Nancy White at 9:26 AM
1 Comments:
In the case of Hindu icons, I wouldn't worry about it. In India you can buy statuettes, posters, comic books, stickers, keychains, you name it, with images of deities. They are widely used in folk art, commercial art, and modern art. Especially given your reasons for finding this particular design attractive, I don't see how a web design would be offensive (unless, maybe, you juxtaposed it with pictures of cows being slaughtered).
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