Some people have called it a form of pornography or prostitution. Others say it is the world’s fastest growing religion. Most of us happily engage in it without question.
I am talking about ‘Consumerism’ – attaining in excess of what is needed for sufficiency in life, and building our lifestyles around it.
Originally the Latin word consumare meant to finish or conclude - the end or termination of something. In health terms, consumption was a synonym for TB, often known as the wasting disease and a huge taker or destroyer of life.
As we know, the world is currently experiencing a new wave of nationalism and populism. In the human search for meaning and purpose, one of the appealing solutions is to retreat nostalgically in mythical past eras and places, or to be lured into simplistic social solutions to complex cultural problems. This kind of thinking suggests that if only we can detach ourselves from the difficulties caused by others, we can recreate a more secure world unthreatened by those people we do not like or understand. We easily stereotype or scapegoat other groups that are not like ourselves, whilst at the...
Gross materialism raises its ugly but seductive head as we move towards Christmas. In Exeter, this is partly symbolised by the Christmas market apparently competing with the Cathedral for custom on Cathedral Green, in this annual clash between Christianity and Consumerism.
Shrewd Santa is the sacred figure of our age stimulating desiring and devouring in malls and missives across the land. As Giles Fraser put it in the Guardian, ‘the great circus of greed is playing itself out all over the country’.
We are once again drawn into a world where material ‘goods’ become the main...
The exhibition explores Winnie’s vision of the capitalist world, viewing desirable commodities from different angles and often with a focus on textile products, in order to resist what she describes as her “shopaholic behaviour and temptation”. Winnie, who graduated from UAL/Chelsea College of Arts with an MA in Fine Art, paints her obsessions into her artworks.
The exhibition is curated by Julian McSweeney and Huanglu Shi for Artsalon+, and is being held in the atmospheric 1st floor room of The Oddfellows - Exeter, at 60 New North Road, EX4 4EP.
While the Christmas consumption orgy fades as the New Year progresses, maybe it is time to remind ourselves of William Blake’s comment ‘we never know what is enough unless we know what is more than enough’. How do we ever become satisfied in a culture of more and more?
In order to better understand our faith’s scriptures we need to appreciate the context in which they were written. We sometimes misunderstand or fail to comprehend verses because we are insufficiently aware of the intention of the original writer, usually writing in a totally different language, in a different...
