Tuesday, June 9, 2015

The Misconception Mainly Because of Media




By Nicolas Gagne


Description

The title of my art work, “The Misconception Mainly Because of Media”, represent quite well the idea that most people from the West have of Muslims. I certainly do not want to put all the blame on the media of our world; however, they surely contribute to a big part of the misconceptions related to Islam. My art work consists of a hand drawing illustration complemented by a collage (the two characters) done on an 8 1/2” x 11” blank sheet. A normal HB pencil and a ruler are the only material I have used in order to complete the drawing component. Due to my lack of skills, I have decided that my art work would be better represented if the two personages were pictures added to my art work. In order to make it all on the same page without reliefs, I drew the concept as the background of the work, made my collage on top of it and finally scanned everything. After scanning the collage, I have used “Paint Software” in order to add some colors around my art work. Finally, I have printed everything and cut the edges to reduce the size of my art work.  My message is not fully explicit and this is why the viewers have to look at it for a moment in order to understand what I meant to deliver as a message with my art work. As I just mentioned, the main purpose of my art work was to provide the viewers with a strong message, which is the reason why I did not include any specific details or very limited use of colors. My main goal was to produce something simple, but shocking and direct at the same time.

Message

Over the years, I have learn a very important concept about life, which I will use as the main message of my art work. It can be summarized in a few words: Never believe what you see or read in the media unless you have actually experienced it. In other words, people have this tendency to believe everything they read or hear in the media which is completely the wrong way of approaching life. Media contains very relevant information that we should definitely use to our advantage; however, it contains also numerous falsifications that could lead one to believe in something that is not true. In the last few decades, Islam has been facing many issues related to peace. Moreover, Islam has been sadly linked to one concept, which is the concept of terrorism. Therefore, my main message is that it is true to say that Islam is not perfect, but so is all the other religions of this world. However, it is definitely wrong to classify each and every Muslim as terrorists, something that my art work depicts quite well. According to Shayan Chishti, 1/3 of Americans have some sort of prejudice/inaccurate view over Muslims, strongly enhance by modern world medias. They have this specific perception that [a]ll Muslims and Arabs are terrorists; [and that] Muslims promote terrorism, along with violence in general (Chishti, 2014). As a community, we have to work together to change these erroneous statements. Islam is, without a doubt, a peaceful religion that does not promote violence in any way (directly or indirectly). It is definitely a sad situation that many Muslims across the world have to deal with in their everyday life. All in all, I am convinced that this situation will eventually change one day, but it will take more people to speak up about this issue. Thus, maybe they could illustrate it like I did for my art work.

Short Biography

I am currently undertaking my senior year at the American University in Dubai. Originally from Canada (Montreal), I have decided to pursue my Bachelor in Business Administration (Majoring in Accounting) in Dubai due to great work possibilities and growth in the market after earning my diploma from AUD. I certainly love everything related to the business world, but I also have a great interest in sports as well as understanding various cultures coming from all over the world.


Works Cited

Abozeid, Amira. (2015, August 2). Misconceptions About Islam: Terrorism, Violence, and Jihad.              
I found Islam. Retrieved from http://ifoundislam.net/revert-supports/articles-by-subject/                   125-misconceptions-about-islam/535-misconceptions-about-islam-terrorism-violence-                and-jihad.html

Anonymous. (2008, February 25). Common Misunderstanding About Muslims. ABC News.

Chishti, Shayan. (2014, June 4). The Misperception of Arabs/Muslims as Terrorists. Prezi. Re                    trieved from https://prezi.com/lbbejg3lppmz/the-misperception-of-arabsmuslims-as-terrorists/

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