Image of identity: a dragon and a sewing manhole

Identity as a palimpsest, composed of many cultural layers? Or perhaps it is a tangle where old is left below and something new is written further?

These are only few of the images which the participants of the round table “Images of identity”, organized by the Flying University and by the organizing committee of the contest “We 2012”believed to be the main topic of discussion.

The round table took place at the exhibition of the projects-winners of the Belarusan and Polish contest of graphical projects “We 2012” that was announced by the Belarusan union of designers and Polish association of creators of commercial art, with the participation of "Batskaushchyna" (Fatherland) World Association of Belarusans and Belarusan Artists Union.

Within the contest Belarusan and Polish artists and designers with the help of the modern graphic means tried to visualize their own cultural identity and by that comprehend it.

It is exactly the sort of exhibition that arouses questions connected with the problem of identity: who we are, what do we fancy about ourselves? What are the brightest and most modern graphic means – the markers of identity? In what does the identity reveal?

- We have very little visual groundwork in the sphere of identity, and this is specifics of Belarusan tradition in attempts to understand themselves, - noted the designer Michal Anempadystau. – There is a lot of poetry written in Belarusan, but everything is not of the best with visualization, while visualization is important; social institutions should deal with it; for instance, Academy of Art.

Today images can hardly be read as images of certain identity, almost all of them are globalized, noted the philosopher and methodologist Uladzimir Matskevich. Those days when in the country one could recognize who lives there by the clothes they wore or by the hood cut are gone. Nowadays everyone has more or less similar clothes.

Matskevich compared identity with the multilayers of ancient wall paintings in church. “Texts are applied on texts, sighs on signs, and symbols on symbols. If you ask yourself a question who I am or who we are and try to clear these cultural layers, then it will be hard to discover yourself. A controversial situation: trying to discover yourself, you will find out that there, at the bottom, is someone who seems to be not you anymore. But at the same time all these layers are yours”.

Michal Anempadystau agreed with the thesis that all the mentioned layers are our culture. As in the world there exist no fully independent isolated cultures. All the cultures represent the result of interaction with the others. A normal way of such cultural interaction is synthesis, and so to say abnormal is cultural aggression.

Identity or brand?

Gradually a discussion of identity changed into the discussion of brand.

An editor of “Tourism and recreation” newspaper Lilija Kobzik recalled the created brand of Minsk, which was ordered to the British Institution INSTID by the authorities. As the city objects that could have become the symbols of the city such variants as watch, traffic lights and sewer manholes were considered.

And on the whole, the search of Belarusan brand is going on. Thus, “Budzma Belarusami” (Let’s be Belarusans) campaign considers dragon as a distinctive Belarusan image and a possible tourist symbol of the country.

A literary person Maryjka Martysevich thinks that the sewing manhole has more chances for success as it exists in reality. According to her, it is disastrous to refer to the Belarusan identity as “we”, as “it is very hard to find a common factor”.

And real Belarus is somewhere in between, between what there is in reality and what we want to see, what we imagine. We should love and understand our time, suggests Lilija Kobzik. She notes that there are few ideas and compares Belarus tot the sleeping beauty that is still waiting for her time.

Identity is something about love. Brand is a commercial technology, aimed only at selling something. Brands are made not by artists, not those who created a water nymph in Copenhagen or a peeing boy in Brussels. And an expert in branding comes to Copenhagen and sells their own water nymph to the locals as a brand.

Identity through art

Do artistic figures show what is in the conscious of many people, or an artist transmits something exceptionally his own, something special?

- Nowadays literature does not convey civil function of national identity creation. It is not literature that should decide upon identity. What can modern Belarusan literature give? Just images of what Belarus is for the author, - Maryjka Martysevich believes.

As Michal Anempadystau said, first works of art appear, and then brands come out of them, but not the other way round. First Shagal paints Vitsebsk – and then everyone goes to see a Vitsebsk of Shagal. Uladzimir Karatkevich created his own unique Belarusan model, and “we” can be part of this Belarus by Karatkevich.

An art historian Siarhei Khareuski noted that “today Soviet means post-soviet trash that is imposed by the authorities (in the form of Stalin line, Lenin monuments, etc.). What identity do authorities want to form by “For Belarus” campaign? Thus, identity can be a form of opposition to the imposed identity as well”.

Siarhei Khareuski doesn’t think that Belarusan identity is a complete palimpsest: “It is more of a tangle where old is left below and something new is written further”.

So what does unite all of us? How do we recognize friends? The most widespread answers of common citizens are “our common life”, “our common territory”. That is why it is so important to place markers – to “mark your own territory”, Uladzimir Matskevich believes. According to the philosopher, identity is not something is with us forever. It is used when it is important for us to identify ourselves with someone close to you. “Identity is festive clothes people wear form time to time. Identity can also be used as an instrument of policy, of cultural policy”.