Hunter professor creates Trump mosaic from Mexican and Muslim faces
‘We cannot look at them as labels, but need to see them as humans who each have a story behind them’
Donald Trump has been in the spotlight since announcing his run for presidency. The Republican candidate has made controversial remarks towards groups of people who create America’s diverse population.
Trump has openly said Mexico is sending people who bring drugs, crime and are rapists. He has also been forthcoming about building a wall separating the two countries and Mexico paying for it.
Trump has extended his remarks towards Muslims after the San Bernardino terrorist attack. He called for a “total and complete shutdown” of U.S. borders to Muslims.
The generalizations Trump has made have been hurtful towards Mexicans and Muslims. The extreme comments are also not shared by all of the American public, including Professor Sam Travis Ewen.
He currently teaches Media Studies at Hunter College and has created a photo mosaic of Trump made up of 602 pictures of Mexicans and Muslims.
Professor Ewan told The Tab: “I decided that Trump does not internalize how much of America is made up of the very people he creates anger and hate for, so I thought it would be interesting to focus on an image that from far away would seem a simple portrait but the closer you get the more realize he is made up of others.”
Professor Ewen is also the founder of Interference Inc. which is a N.Y.C. based guerrilla marking company.
Interference Inc. uses the advertising strategy to promote businesses’ services and products in unconventional way with limited budgets.
Its clients include HBO, Citigroup, among others. Professor Ewen has had experience with this art form.
He told me: “I have worked in photomosaics for a while, my first project was rendering famous cultural icons out of emoji.”
The Trump project took time and hard work. “Between the gathering of images, manipulation of software and fine-tuning the image, the whole thing took about seven hours.”
Professor Ewen shared his powerful mosaic online, through Twitter and Tumblr, and also showed it to Hunter media students.
“I want viewers to understand that when Trump talks about broad groups of people that they are still made up of individuals,” he said.
“Men, women, old and young, famous and common. We cannot look at them as labels, but need to see them as humans who each have a story behind them.”