The American Youth Bag is a solo exhibition brought to you by Drew Eastwood MFA '24. Seeking to champion collage, this exhibition shows its ability to be transformative both materially & conceptually. Through a playful piecing together of both present and historical marginalia from contemporary life, collage becomes a catalyst to create oneself anew.
Recounting from the 1970s book, Future Shock, by Futurist Alvin Toffler, The American Youth Bag is an exhibition that references the plethora of lifestyle models that allow individuals to find, test out, and ultimately construct their sense of personal identity. Toffler, who pulled this coined term from writer John Speicher, who noted that in our fast-growing age of overconsumption and a time where overchoice is ever rampant, reaching into βthe youth bagβ could result in a hopelessly fragmented identity; national or otherwise. The works presented in The American Youth Bag reference these models by mischievously piecing together hopelessly fragmented identities, imagery, and materials, and through this act, harlequin figures emerge. In their presence, the eccentric characters present potential future selves made in the now, having acknowledged yet shed the harmful stereotypes of the past. Placed in wry poses and set in esoteric scenes, the harlequin characters lay bare the phantasmagoric nature of modern life. Their colorful, zany, and jester-like appearances embody a vehement embrace of individuality, taking themselves simply as they are. In the efforts of finding kinship with yourself and those around you. In a time where overchoice is ever rampant and identity feels hopelessly alienated. The self-assurance exuded by figure and form is a reminder to be passionately definitive in life and wholly yourself.
By reaching into The American Youth Bag, you are able to subvert archaic lifestyle models, bringing into question the morals and ethics behind simply existing in our seemingly ever-present tumultuous contemporary world.