New
Materialism

Cultural entanglement implies mutual correlation and two types of a connection: explicit and transparent, hidden and implicit. Explicit is by its nature self-evident and discernable, while implicit has to be searched for and discovered by removing layers that suppress it. Entanglement is strongly related to cultural identity, and since culture is constant and never-changing because it is related to cult and thus suggests cycles (see entry on “culture”), entanglement cannot disappear or be disregarded. Such idea may be justified by the examples commonly found in artistic production. Cultural entanglement is obvious in the work of expatriate artists and authors since they never truly identify with another culture, but rather stay entangled to their own identity which can be sensed throughout their work. Hence, the artwork is the representation of their culture and thus entanglement must be there. Mona Hatoum, a prominent British artist of Lebanese origin, is a paragon of this because entanglement is very present in her pieces of work, sometimes explicitly, but very often implicitly. Although hidden, cultural entanglement can be found in her artwork when outer layers are removed and the fundamental idea of it remains. In that sense, entanglement can be a positive and liberating one or, quite often, negative and imprisoning one. Positive brings creative force and fosters liberating artwork tracing a positive cultural background, while negative one connects the author’s work with their life in initial cultural environment that has had no joyful events. Such events then transcend the life of an author, even though they are physically away from culture. Such negative entanglement is sometimes stronger than a positive one. Furthermore, it is rather implicit than explicit since authors often try to generate a new identity and cultural entanglement with an acquired environment.

keywords: correlation, Mona Hatoum, culture
genealogy: culture
synonym: identity, connection
antonym: separation, dissipation
hypernym: culture
hyponym: liberation, imprisonment