ron laboray studio

My practice, at its base, is about building an archive of maps, charts and timelines about how we humans connect to each other.  I worked as an archaeologist to personally understand the importance of and record cultural information. What I found is that we use shared philosophies, trade, communication, and entertainment to connect. This model is also at the core of globalization.  The affects of globalization both negative and positive demonstrate international exchange of ideas and cross-cultural hybridization through instant communication, banking and entertainment.  The first two, instant communication and banking advanced the later extending Western mass culture globally.  Originally my practice’s primary focus was on ideas and places within mass culture local to me in my country and how we define ourselves and where we live in America only branching out occasionally to examine camping and baseball in post war Japan.  Over the last decade in order to have a larger picture or deeper significance within my cultural data archive, I globally broadened the random data collection that fuels the work.  I am now traveling in an attempt for a more truthful depiction or record, but also to connect and be involved.  I do this by visiting institutions, giving lectures about my work, American culture and globalization, while providing artist studio visits, working with students and creating or exhibiting art.  

 

I have been to Budapest as part of a Fulbright project where I spoke at the National Academy of Science and installed a mural of a timeline at Karoli Gaspar University.