Sunday, September 30, 2012

Blog 6 Peace

Luba Lukova

This is a design by Luba Lukova. I was initially attracted to the piece because of the message - I am a great believer in peaceful, nonviolent solutions. And I love when artists and designers use their talent to speak out for social justice and change. This work does just that - its function is to speak out for peace through the use of irony. The peace dove is made up of agents of war - bombs, tanks, fighter plane, tanks, soldiers, explosions. The incongruity is apparent. Sadly, the audience who will take the message from this work are the people that agree with the point of the composition. Conversely, I think it may offend or be ignored those who disagree with the meaning.

I think this piece is very creative in the way it presents information. The dove is the focal point. Lukova uses the Gestalt principle that humans see the whole first and then look deeper at the individual parts of a work. So, we see the dove first, and then we see it is made up of instruments of war. After that the irony sets in. She also plays on a common object - a symbol - to represent peace to help us understand the meaning of the work. The use of the soft blue, soothing background also plays into this ironic solution. Looking at a dove, one would expect a soft, calming color but delving deeper into the image, dissonance occurs - this is not a comforting piece, it is just the opposite. I believe this is a highly effective piece and works creatively on many levels.

Source: Gomez-Palacio, Bryony, Armin, Vit, Women of Design, Fraser Direct, Ontario, Canada, 2008.


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