I JUST WANT TO SEE HAPPY FACES Book 2
A serie of three books which tell the story of hiding violent news images, like torture or the tortured in dictatorships. I do, living in the western world hide those images. But the dictators themselves want to hide those images as well. Each one of us for their own reasons.
I made the choice to tell this story using three dictators who ruled around the same period of time, but on entirely different continents and societies. Mao Zedong of China conducted a communist regime, Idi Amin Dada Oumee of Uganda a military regime and Ayatollah Khomeini of Iran a religious one.
In line with these three different people, societies and regimes I wanted to show that there is no difference, they all torture and they all try to hide the images.
These three books are all different, in terms of layout, size, paper, typeface and binding method. But in all three books there is a lot of hiding going on, each book in a different way. The red text that reoccurs in every book is written from the point of view of the dictator; what are his motives to hide?
Idi Amin Dada Oumee:
This is the only book where the images are in black and white (connotation with the technique of the old days). This due to the fact that it is the only regime among these three that has officially been terminated. All three dictators are dead, but the ideas of Mao Zedong still lives on as well of those of Ayatollah Khomeini. The ideas of Idi Amin went to his grave alongside with him.
I wanted to portray the same idea with the use of the color white. White stands for sterile and infertile (his regime didn't last long) and in some cultures and religions in Uganda it also stands for death (his regime ended and also his political influence and ideas).
Willem de Kooning Academy
June 11
Series of books
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