Susan Bercu
- Santa Rosa, California, US
- @susan_bercu
Cast-Offs Streamers
Photo montage (clockwise)
1. Organization of my detritus
2. Preparation of my streamers
3. Community participation
4. Cast-Offs installed in Putnam Plaza
I am grateful to be a recipient of an ArtSurround artist’s grant through Creatives Sonoma @creativesonoma; https://www.creativesonoma.org/ArtSurround/ wherein I conceived and am implementing this project. “Cast-Offs” is a community endeavor that relates to the @WhatsNextForEarth art call “Community Resilience in the 21st Century”. Richard Heinberg demonstrates that the “focus is primarily on building resilience at the community level, as opposed to the global, national, or household level.”
- Susan Bercu
Fire Flowers
Assemblage mask: paintings, recycled newspaper, found rattan flowers and plastic leaves, stick pins.
10 in. wide x 13 in. high x 5 in. deep.
The Post Carbon Institute’s chapter, “Think Resilience” is a roadmap for us humans to flourish in harmony with nature. In California, fires are dramatically increasing because of climate change. Our county has a comprehensive environmental plan including fire-wise measures with much education and work to be done. “Fire Flowers” is a testament to Nature’s resilience but demands the concerted allegiance of responsible community.
- Susan Bercu
Wendy and Michael
Wall assemblage uses largely recycled materials, adhered with string, wire, glue, nails. 26 in. wide x 25 in. high x 10 in. deep
For our civilization to survive, the Post Carbon Institute’s chapter on Culture Change and Neuroscience teaches, “Most traditional human societies expended a great deal of effort to provide moral guidance, often through myths and stories, to foster pro-social behavior.”
This eye is a talisman, reminding us that we must live in harmony with each other and with nature.
Details: Pierced metal face influenced by Milagros (miracle charms found in Latin cultures); head of giraffe represents endangered wildlife; head of tribesman represents indigenous cultures.
- Susan Bercu
Just Knick Knacks
Assemblage inside a Coca Cola wood crate uses the heads of recycled dolls and my paintings (reduced) to fit each cubbyhole
12 W x 18 H inches
The categorization of people by color or country of origin is a calculated invention of the oppressor to dehumanize and trivialize the “other” people as “Just Knick Knacks”. Our country was built on the backs of African slaves with the justification of labeling them an inferior race by those who enslaved them.
The Coca-Cola crate represents the unlimited power of giant corporations. Sugar, an addictive, non-nutritious substance is a symbol of greed dispensed across the planet. Each cubbyhole imprisons a victim of racism. The seven migrant children memorialized in my paintings and reduced to fit inside the case, died while in ICE custody between 2018 and 2019 under the Trump administration Zero Tolerance policy that Illegally and cruelly separated families
Racism, permeating the entire globe is the obvious result of “expedient” racial labels and leads to our demise with refugees, wars, poverty. We lose our family, home, livelihood, health, community. Our humanity.
- Susan Bercu
I am the reef
watercolor, ink, acrylic/collage on paper
18in x 24 in
- Susan Bercu
Too Late (Even for Superheroes)
Recycled materials: Canvas map (wood back), toys, phone wire, bullet cases, fake flora, tulle.
Paper mâché heads, objects are tied, nailed to background.
30 in. H x 48 in. W x 4 in. D.)
- Susan Bercu