The found image in photomontage

"Use readily available images to make a short narrative series of 4 to 6 collages based on a recent or contemporary news event." OCA course material

February 2017. Donald Trump, having been elected as the President of the United States of America, continues to divide citizens with his policies. On day 1,  he proposed the 2 pipelines through Keystone XL and Dakota Access which passes near tribal land belonging to the Standing Rock Sioux which President Obama had blocked. The natives are still demonstrating against Trump's proposal. One of the images I was going to create was a bulldozer going across the Sioux land until I found an image posted on the internet which Google advertised as being posted 2 days before similar to this one. (I should have saved the one I came across). I questioned whether this was a "real"image or created and searched the news to find out what may be happening. However, Trump's news does not seem to be entirely accurate.

NBC News 9/2/2017

Instead, I used the idea that Mount Rushmore (in Black Rocks, Dakota near to the Sioux tribes) is seen as a tourist destination which people like to impose their self or their ego onto. Mount Rushmore "signifies achievements of the U.S. symbolised by the four great leaders." (Ulmer: 1994)

Day 2 saw one of Trump's themes throughout the election campaign come to fruition. Trump thinks America should be for Americans and his plans to build a wall between America and Mexico has been a source of media interest since the campaign. Since coming to power this is still high on the agenda with radical plans to stop non Americans entering the country. Using the Brandenburg gate (now considered a symbol of unity,) I juxtaposed Trump's vision of America onto the Berlin Wall which was built to restrict movement of people from East to West Berlin.

Yesterday this was floating around the internet, and a quick Google check revealed composite images of Trump and Ikea.

Covarrubias, S. (2017)

By the end of Week 1, Trump banned people travelling to America from 7 countries: Iran, Iraq, Syria, Libya, Somalia, Sudan and Yemen for 90 days. His administration took the issue to the American Supreme Court who ruled that the ban was unlawful and thus suspended.

Trump is still fighting to repeal the Affordable Care Act (Obamacare)...

References
Covarrubias, S. (2017) Fake News: Ikea builds Trump a prefab border wall. [online] Available at: http://www.hotsaucedrops.com/?author=104 (last accessed 21/2/17)
Ulmer, G. (1994) Metaphoric rocks: A psychogeography of tourism and monumentality. [online] Available at: http://pmc.iath.virginia.edu/text-only/issue.594/pop-cult.594 (last accessed 21/2/17)

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Peter Kennard
Kennard's career span 50 years, and documents political unrest through photo montage. Inspired by John Heartfield. Informs the public through the "visual culture of conflict and crisis in modern history."(Slocombe, 2015) Kennard communicates events by sharing images to inform the public such as fly posters, protest placards, newspapers etc. Photo Opp (2003) by Peter Kennard and Cat Phillips shows Tony Blair taking a selfie against a burning oil field to document the controversial Iraq policy.

Kennard uses ideas which people are familiar with and presents them so that people have to look at what they see. The "Haywain with cruise missile" (1981) (originally painted by Constable) contains American cruise missiles instead of hay. In "Boardroom", a skeleton is reading a book called "protect and survive" with an image of a nuclear family on the cover.

Reference
Slocombe, R. (2015) Protest and Survive: Why Peter Kennard is political dynamite. The Guardian. [online] Available at: https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2015/may/01/blair-selfie-peter-kennard-political-dynamite (last accessed 9/2/17)

Bibliography
IWM (2016) Art.IWM ART 17541. Available at: http://www.iwm.org.uk/learning/resources/contemporary-art-and-war (last accessed 5/2/17)

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Lisa Barnard Chateau Despair
Barnard's book uses photographs of Mrs Thatcher's derelict Conservative office which conflict with the memories of her party's leadership with which she took Britain through the Thatcherism years after her landslide victories. Interspersed among the conservative blue walls and faded carpets are found campaign photographs of Margaret Thatcher ruined with age which make the viewer question the success of the campaigns, documented history and individual memories.

Bibliography
Gost books. (2013) Chateau Despair by Lisa Barnard. Available at: https://vimeo.com/57283237 (last accessed 5/2/17)
Gost. (n.d.) Chateau Despair / Lisa Barnard. Available at: http://www.gostbooks.com/books/31/chateau-despair (last accessed 5/2/17)
Rawnsley, A. (2013) Chateau Despair by Lisa Barnard: The real Iron Lady by Gillian Shephard review. The Guardian [online] https://www.theguardian.com/books/2013/mar/25/chateau-despair-iron-lady-shephard-review (last accessed 21/2/17)

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Cummings, C. (2014) "Hannah Hoch review." In The Guardian. [online]. Available at: https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2014/jan/13/hannah-hoch-whitechapel-review (last accessed 5/2/17)