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Acimilation Project

I was invited to participate in an online/blog project by my friend Rubens. It's called the Acimilation Project - Here.

In a nutshell: "In anthropology and sociology, the process whereby individuals or groups of differing ethnic heritage are absorbed into the dominant culture of a society. The process of assimilating involves taking on the traits of the dominant culture to such a degree that the assimilating group becomes socially indistinguishable from other members of the society. As such, assimilation is the most extreme form of acculturation. Although assimilation may be compelled through force or undertaken voluntarily, it is rare for a minority group to replace its previous cultural practices completely; religion, food preferences, proxemics and aesthetics are among the characteristics that tend to be most resistant to change."

Everyone participating in the project was asked to appropriate the same image (I'm assuming chosen by Rubens). Each artist
uses the image to either add on to or take away from - which in itself is another illustration of what happens during acimilation. I used the photo as an opportunity to level the playing field. Where I grew up and went to school in a strange pocket of West Philadelphia we all were acimilating in to each other. There seemed to be no one dominating religion or race. However, we all in our own personal ways were fighting to merge our families heritages, partially instilled in us, in to a culture growing more and more homogenous. We all wanted to "fit in" but fit in to what?