Walking through Pressing Ideas: 50 Years of Women’s Lithographs from Tamarind, I was struck by the depth and variety in the exhibition, and one print in particular stood out: Margo Humphrey’s The Last Bar-B-Que. I was immediately drawn in by the lithograph’s vibrant color, but what kept my attention was the obvious link to Leonardo da Vinci’s The Last Supper. I have studied medieval art, and I am interested in any artwork with religious undertones; this print is no exception. The amount of detail, the mix of religious and African American cultural symbolism, and the reference to da Vinci’s masterpiece intrigued me.
Researching these works, I learned two things: 1) People have crazy conspiracy theories when it comes to The Last Supper; and 2) Margo Humphrey is a fantastic artist. Humphrey, known for her bold, expressive use of color, was one of the earliest African American female artists to distinguish herself in the medium of lithography. She has traveled the world gaining inspiration for her work as well as inspiring others through her teaching and art.
Her pieces are very personal: they lead the viewer on the narrative of her life and self-discovery while beautifully capturing broader aspects of African American, and, more generally, human, cultural experiences, including food, religion, music, and relationships. As Humphrey says, “The majority of my work is in the narrative form. I use mental and verbal allegories as a basis for my imagery. Within this context I use a palette of intense color to express energy and visual excitement.”
The differences between da Vinci’s The Last Supper and Humphrey’s The Last Bar-B-Que are vast. Humphrey uses vibrant colors, incorporates an outdoor setting and traditional picnic food (such as watermelon and fried chicken), includes two obviously female figures, and of course, focuses on figures who are African American. Her use of color is intriguing, though. As in several of her other works, three figures are actually blue, a striking shade that draws attention to the figures corresponding to Christ, Bartholomew/Nathaniel, and James. It is also worth noting that the figure corresponding to Simon is a sunny shade of yellow.
Humphrey describes this work as “a serious piece: a rewriting of history through the eyes of my ancestry, a portrayal of a savior who looks like my people,” which makes the blue color even more surprising. These vibrant, non-literal colors provoked me to speculate about what Humphrey was trying to communicate: the unimportance of skin color, perhaps? Or maybe she was inspired by color’s significance in other traditions, such as the Hindu tradition of depicting Vishnu, the Supreme god and Preserver of the Universe, with blue skin. Humphrey has traveled extensively, including to the islands of Fiji, which have the world’s 5th largest Hindu population, and according to The Faculty Voice (a newspaper written by the faculty of the University System of Maryland), The Last Bar-B-Que was inspired by Humphrey’s trip to Fiji. Hindu art is dominated by depictions of Vishnu, and, taken within this context, Humphrey’s lithograph transcends African American and Christian cultural experiences to celebrate the universality of spirituality, a common theme in Humphrey’s work.
This piece, through humor (“Judas” is in prison stripes), color, and beautiful details, is multi-faceted and multi-layered—it can be enjoyed on many levels. Be sure to come see The Last Bar-B-Que and the other beautiful lithographs in Pressing Ideas: 50 Years of Women’s Lithographs from Tamarind, on display at NMWA now through October 2, 2011.
To listen to Marjorie Devon, director of the Tamarind Institute, describe this “witty takeoff on the Last Supper,” discussing Humphrey and her work, click here!
I would warmly recommend a tool for ISO 27001 automation that uses PTA - Practical Threat Analysis. What these folks have done is to write a generic library for performing an ISO 27001 assessment using the PTA Professional freeware. The framework is all there and you can build a real life threat model in about 15 minutes by adding your own
threats and assets. The part I like about PTA is the optimized risk mitigation plan that recommends the most effective controls.
I recently ran into an intriguing application for PTA - Practical Threat Analysis tool - called PTA ISO 27001 automation. Basically what these folks have done is to write a PTA library for ISO 27001 which a) automates the assessment process like lightning and b) enables you to build a threat model and mitigation plan ala ISO in a few minutes.
Philly Police Blog | Wanted: Suspect for Leaving the Scene Auto/Pedestrian in the 12th District [VIDEO]
On August 18, 2018, at 4:45 pm, the victim, a 52 year-old female, was crossing the street in the 6200 block of Passyunk Avenue when an unknown black male on a white Honda CBR motorcycle struck the victim causing significant injuries to her leg. The suspect then circled through a parking lot before leaving the scene and the victim laying in the street.
With the impending Steam release of La-Mulana fast approaching, we thought it might be fun to look back on the surprisingly long and storied history of the game, especially for those of you gamers that may not know much about La-Mulana, NIGORO, or Asterizm.
La-Mulana began in 2001 as the pet project of Takumi Naramura, Houryu Samejima, and Takayuki Ebihara, who at the time, called their group GR3 Project. The game was meant to be a throwback to games of their youth, evoking the gameplay and aesthetics of classic hardware.
Their influences were obvious. La-Mulana’s hero, Lemeza, could collect MSX ROMs that when combined, would offer unique effects. The gameplay was an homage to Konami’s MSX classic, Maze of Galious, and the team even felt it fit to include a region within the game known as ‘The Maze of Galious’ (though we’ll leave it to you to discover where it is). The graphical style was simple but hand-crafted, and each room was littered with traps, monsters, and hosts of secrets. The team released a demo version of the game in 2002.
Determined to make La-Mulana the best game it could be, but still tied down by their own individual real life commitments, the three developers toiled away at the game in their free time, eventually completing the game in 2005.
GR3 Project changed their name to NIGORO in 2007, and began work on smaller, flash-based titles. By this time, word of La-Mulana had spread, and a fan translation of the game had been completed by Aeon Genesis. There was a groundswell of excitement around the game, and many fans wanted a remake, on both sides of the pond.
In 2011, after an arduous development cycle, NIGORO released a remake of La-Mulana on Nintendo’s WiiWare eshop, but only in Japan. NIGORO assured western fans that the remake would make it to the West, and that work was being done.
Art was completely redone to line up more with the 16-bit era, puzzles and maps were modified, and some traps were even moved in an effort to keep even seasoned spelunkers on their toes. The game was given new life in the form of a fully formed remake.
Unfortunately, due to a myriad circumstances, La-Mulana’s western release was canceled both in North America and Europe, and the game’s localization was unceremoniously canceled. NIGORO had given up hope of releasing the game in the West.
It was around this time that we began working with NIGORO to bring La-Mulana to PC. Determined to get La-Mulana out to the West, NIGORO ported their remake to the PC, and localized it for the English-speaking audience with our help.
Finally, on July 13, 2012, La-Mulana was released on Playism, and fans finally got the chance to play this fantastic and brutally hard title.
And the journey isn’t over yet! La-Mulana is finally coming to Steam, and it’s set to release on April 15th. We hope to see all of you intrepid adventurers exploring the catacombs, and swearing at Naramura when you get squashed by the same stone block for the fifth time! And to play us out, here’s a condensed version of La-Mulana’s history, done by NIGORO themselves:
Put simply, a potential “ripe moment” exists, when all or at least the major parties to a conflict perceive themselves to be stuck in a „mutually hurting stalemate“, that is a situation, where the hitherto preferred, “usually unilateral means of achieving a satisfactory result are blocked,” pain associated with the past course of action increases and further escalation does not promise victory. Pre-mature efforts at conflict resolution are bound to fail.
Yet, on the other hand such a potential ripe moment can pass by unnoticed. It must be actively seized by the conflict-parties to become relevant as a springboard to change. In order to work as a catalyst for change, a ripe moment further requires that both sides perceive a way out. Specific openings that allow for the re-evaluation of the current situation as a mutually hurting stalemate are for example leadership changes or catastrophes that either just occurred ore are deemed impending.
A closer look at the past dynamics of the conflict in the South China Sea shows that such a ripe moment seems to have finally emerged in summer 2016 with the PCA-award after several years of escalating tensions almost by accident.
Serious escalation began in 2012 with a stand-off between Philippine and Chinese ships in Scarborough Shoal, off the western coast of the northernmost Philippine island of Luzon, out of which China emerged victorious. Philippine President Aquino then shifted the Philippine strategy for dealing with its conflict with China away from efforts in conflict management, when he unilaterally and against the expressed wish of China turned to the PCA to establish the legal validity of several Chinese claims. This turn towards conflict-resolution through winning a legal case against China precluded any options for a face-saving solution acceptable to China.
The Aquino government had unwittingly set in motion a process that led to a severe escalation, as China would not budge. In order to coax the Philippines to withdraw its case, China would have had to severely cut down its vast claims in the South China Sea. However, such a retreat would have had severe consequences for China’s further claims in the South China Sea, as well as for its rivalry with the United States over regional leadership. In this situation, China chose not to recognize the court’s jurisdiction and the expected negative ruling. China turned to raising the stakes by establishing artificial islands in the South China Sea. It also provided these with airports, harbors and the means for military defense.
This hardball-response resulted in a deterioration of relations not only between China and the Philippines. Other states with territorial claims in the South China Sea, the Association of South East Asian States (ASEAN), Japan, Australia and the United States sided with the Philippines. Together with further external powers they not only successively increased their political support for, but also broadened their military cooperation with the Philippines. The South China Sea also became a prominent topic for various international organizations, most importantly the G7, who on account of their Foreign Ministers’ meetings in Lübeck and Hiroshima in 2015 and 2016 respectively gave prominence to their common principled position against the Chinese activities in the South China Sea. All of them clearly positioned themselves as supporters of the Philippine turn to international arbitration and made clear that they expected China to respect the ruling. Clearly, the confrontational dynamics brought about an increasingly painful situation for China that also threatened its aim of getting respected as a benign leading power with global aspirations.
For China, the PCA-ruling of July 2016 came as a diplomatic and legal catastrophe, as it all but smashed the Chinese claims in the South China Sea. This came not necessarily as a shock, as it had been anticipated by some time. It nevertheless made obvious that China had arrived at a dead end with ever-mounting costs and low return in exchange.
The Aquino-government focused on the Philippine gains by resorting to arbitration in its evaluation of the situation. However, it also became clear that the Philippine strategy resulted in serious burdens to the Philippines. First, the accompanying deterioration of Sino-Philippine relations had serious consequences with respect to Philippine export. Further, whereas China ventilated a host of lucrative options for other Southeast Asian countries in the context of its Belt and Road initiative, the Philippines were left out in the cold. Worse, these losses were not compensated by enhanced economic opportunities with the traditional trading partners of the Philippines. While the United States, but also Japan, Australia or the EU voiced political support, this did not translate in a significant increase of financial support. Finally, nobody had any idea about how to enforce the ruling without running the risk of military clashes with China. In the event of a military escalation, U.S. support was not guaranteed as the 1951 Mutual Defense Treaty is vague on this subject and the United States refused to commit themselves to the military defense of the Philippine claims.
To the new Philippine government lead by Rodrigo Duterte, the Philippines were the big looser in reals terms, even though they won the legal case. In the Words of Philippine Foreign Minister Cayetano:
We were winning the people’s hearts and mind. We were winning the argument of the rule of law. We won the arbitration award. But China was winning the ground war, or they were inhabiting more of the features than we were.
Duterte, who was inaugurated two weeks before the PCA ruling on 30 June 2016, provided a way out of this quandary, by putting the PCA-ruling in the backburner. He offered to return to conflict-management along the procedural lines preferred by Beijing: bilateral consultations and negotiations without resorting to the “megaphone diplomacy” of his predecessor in office. His offer has promised to buy time and allows to search for solutions that accept the face-saving needs of both parties.
Duterte’s precondition for restarting the bilateral relations was that China provided the much-needed financial help for a host of large-scale Philippine infrastructure projects, open its market to Philippine exports and show some restraint in the South China Sea. In return, he was willing to reframe China from a bully to a crucial partner for common development
China reacted swiftly, already before the inauguration of Duterte and the impending catastrophe of the PCA-ruling. In June 2016, the Chinese Global times published a roadmap that was to foretell later developments:
The result of the international arbitration filed by the Aquino administration is very likely to favor the Philippines, giving Duterte leverage in bargaining with China. Manila and Beijing might reach a reconciliation: The Philippines will be asked to employ a low-key approach to the result of the arbitration and turn to bilateral negotiation with China; in exchange, China will incorporate the Philippines into its ‘Belt and Road’ initiative, expand investment in the Philippines and seek larger cooperation in infrastructure.
To be sure, the Chinese build-up of military installations on the artificial islands it constructed in 2014 and 2015 in the Spratly Islands still continues unabated. However, in a flurry of bilateral visits, the two sides have not only re-established a dense net of communication, but also achieved significant results with respect to Philippine exports, Chinese financial aid and Chinese tourism to the Philippines. At least as important it is to note that the new dynamics resulted in a dramatic lessening of law enforcement incidents, in which Chinese law enforcement vessels harassed those of the Philippines or other countries.
While it is much too early to tell whether the current honeymoon in Sino-Philippine relations can last, it seems to be a promising beginning that deserves the support of all interested external powers. At the same time Duterte and the external powers should uphold some pressures, as a reminder to China, lest they forget the lessons learned about the experience of a painful stalemate. In the medium term the ongoing process will not survive without some mutually enticing opportunities and it is the task of not only China and the Philippines, but also the most important external actors, to do their utmost to provide the prospects for a more attractive future to provide for such pull factors that over time have to replace the push-factor emanating from the mutually hurting stalemate.
Peter Kreuzer is a Senior Researcher at PRIF. He focuses on political violence in the Philippines and maritime conflicts in the South China Sea.
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