Most commonly defined in the media, google search, popular discourse and so on, cultural appropriation involves members of the dominant culture “adopting” or “borrowing” elements from the culture of the minority groups.
But what I aim to shade light on is the question of, why does my picture count for contemporary art instead of cultural appropriation? The definition applied to cultural appropriation is a very narrow and rigid one, especially when it interlinks with race and dominant cultures. For example, what shall we term an instance where elements of a dominant culture are infused in the culture of a minority group? Is this not, too, cultural appropriation, since the end goal is to appropriate it, to make it acceptable/normal/accessible?
How is the presence of a modern type bag and an accordion not items to make what seems as a foreign, unfamiliar world more accessible to the audience I was to amaze at the time. The word contemporary itself aids in achieving this accessibility. By incorporating elements such as the bag, it brings forward in time a picture that otherwise would have been labelled ‘historical’ or ‘vintage’. Existing/occurring within the same time, contemporary. Is this not appropriating ‘ancient Africa’ to the ‘modern world’?
