Persistence

 Fay Rodrigues

DIMENSIONS: 1000 X 800 pixels
TECHNIQUE: Photo manipulation & digital calligraphy inspired by the ‘Naskh’ calligraphic style
SOFTWARE: Adobe Photoshop

The concept of my artwork aggregately addresses several facets of the idea of terrorism’s persistence – right from religion fueled terrorism unto Islamophobia as a consequence.The prevalence of religion fueled terrorism in society nowadays can be attributed to the physical as well as mental propagation of delusional beliefs that have marred the true essence of religion to begin with. When the negative aspects of human nature amalgamate with religious fanaticism, the forces of repulsion between human relationships are amplified. Political ideology is also to be blamed to a serious extent because the fulcrum belief of any political ideology in general is that societal concord can be achieved via the execution of extreme acts of violence, all because of shared ideas that a group of like-minded extremists have concocted. The world is practically a ‘global village’ that is tied together by strings or webs of cooperation, dependence and interdependence
amongst states; and terrorists are significantly impinging the potential of a resilient concord. The countries that harbor these terrorists also harbor innocent people who are afraid of becoming collateral to the responsive anger from other countries that have been attacked. Disharmony between religious groups such as Christians,
Muslims and Jews is a prominent corollary. Islamophobia is a reality because most religious terrorists tend to be brainwashed Muslims who have tainted the image of Islam with their acts of violence and destroyed the lives of people not just from other religions, but also from their very own religion itself. The rest of the Muslims around the world with good hearts and non delusional religious beliefs are shadowed by the acts of these terrorists – and the parlous state of the resident countries of these terrorists is evidently becoming highly contagious.

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My name is Fay Rodrigues and I am currently a senior student at the American University of Dubai, studying a BFA in Visual Communication – Majoring in Digital Media. Despite being a creative by nature, I aspire to become a Humanitarian Leader in the future because my ambition strongly stems from the will to help improve the lives of the unfortunate as best as I can.