Joseph Guay – Remnants of the Human Condition

By Joseph Guay

The Human Condition: “the characteristics, key events, and situations which compose the essentials of our Human existence… including birth, growth, conflict, mortality, religion, philosophy, history, and sociology.”

What sums us up as individuals, groups, and nations of today? If we turn to the news for answers, we are bombarded with terrorism, school violence, police brutality, the war in the middle east, homeland security and mass shooting sprees. The list seems to never end. Is this the true state of humanity or have we all fallen prey to the scare tactics of the media; manipulated into fear instead of choosing human intellect?

I knew I could no longer pretend the news and the global fear based reactions of our society were not becoming an overwhelming influence on me. When I started my career twenty years ago, I was a sculptor. There was something authentic about using my hands to translate what I was feeling inside. In an attempt to tap back into something pure again, I went to a scrapyard looking for metal to begin a new body of work to hopefully express everything that was taking place in the world around me. While digging through the tons of discarded steel, I came across a bucket of AK-47 bullet shells. My first thought was… “What is a bucket of assault rifle bullets doing here?” I was so intrigued with the story behind the bullets that I felt the need to buy them, not necessarily knowing what I was going to do with them. But they felt relevant. Questions started surfacing: Who used these bullets? How many of these are around? Was anyone killed with these or did they just belong to a random individual that dumped them here? If so, why did a civilian feel the need to have an assault riffle? The questions just kept pouring in. Who should own guns? What is the true need for weapons? Is there any real regulation or accountability for the purchasers intent?