LATEST ARTWORK, CHILDHOOD DEMISE

Please go to the LOVE146 webpage before reading about my artwork!!!
This last semester I did an art project that meant more to me than any other art project I have ever done. My sister in law choreographed a modern dance called Love146 dealing with the exact same subject matter. After I had heard family talk about how wonderful it was, I had no doubt, I finally was able to see it live. It motivated me so much I knew I had to visually express my feelings and make more people aware of the situation. I will never be the same after viewing the dance and creating my Installation called “Childhood Demise.”
This artwork is all about these innocent girls that are sold, sometimes by their own families, to brothels where they are enslaved, beaten and sold for sexual acts. The problem is most prevalent in Cambodia because of severe poverty, although there are more than 1,000 girls sold in the US every year. The statistics are awful to even contemplate. The sex trade is the number two largest illegal money making industry in the world. 2 girls are sold every minute to a brothel. These girls literally cannot leave. Brothels are sometimes owned by the justice system, the girls become addicted to the live style and they just do not have anywhere to go. I was shocked when I heard this for the first time and asked myself what I could do. I do not have money to donate, I cannot go over there and save them, I cannot motivate their government or ours to save them. The only thing I know how to do is to make art, which in turn makes people aware of this incredibly disgusting problem. I feel that if people are aware we can in the long run help the reason behind why this is even happening. The economy needs to be built so these girls are not sold for pennies. So what I ask is just be aware and do what we can weather it be art, dance, send money, whatever –Just Know!
Now for an explanation of my work, it is an Installation, which is a transformation of a space to convey an idea or concept. I had a small area in one of the halls in the JKB at BYU to do so. I lined the walls and ceilings with three strips of paper (brown on both sides of white symbolizing the filth overpowering the pure) All three have text, first is statistics of the sex slave industry, second is my artist statement (how I feel and why I did the artwork), and third research others have done. On the third strip there are also stories of the girls located in the picture collage. One the right side of the hall way there is a picture collage of girls that have been enslaved. One girl is highlighted because she “still has light in her eyes” The curtains symbolize the hidden life and industry. And directly across is a TV that the girls are watching (resembles the TV the girls watch cartoons on in between acts). The TV is fuzzy and if you were there you would here a high pitched sound. This symbolizes the emptiness and loss of all childhood these girls face. The noise is to get the viewers attention. I want my audience to walk through the hall and be captured by the text, sounds and innocent faces of the issue they may know nothing about.