This year, I entered the Saint Louis University "Inspired By" Showcase celebrating the 2021 Saint Louis Literary Award winner, Zadie Smith. Entrants were tasked with reading her short story collection Grand Union and creating an art piece inspired by one or more of its themes.
My piece, Getaway (The Lazy River), won the college non-digital category! I've included the work and its description below.
Getaway (The Lazy River)
Mimi Brown, Boston University
Mixed media on canvas
“Oh, but don’t we already know the world is full of horror?
Do we really need to hear about it all the livelong day?”
- Zadie Smith, “Just Right”
Throughout Grand Union, Zadie Smith explores the prevalence of ignorance in modern society, especially in the stories “The Lazy River” and “Just Right.” Getaway (The Lazy River) addresses this theme by representing an abstract version of the Lazy River as it travels through the horrors plaguing our world. In its center sits a bouquet of real roses, which will crumble and fall as the piece is displayed. This references the vanitas style of painting: still lives of flowers, fruit, and sometimes skulls, which represent the imminence of mortality. As the rose petals fall, the headlines of global issues will remain intact, therefore juxtaposing the impermanence of worldly possessions with the permanence of social and environmental issues and their impacts. These will not die with us; rather, we will continue to pass them on through generations until we consciously make a change.
The Lazy River continues beyond the canvas, implying its indefinite continuity. For so long, we as humans have watched as others have been beaten, starved, enslaved, and slaughtered as we have decided to care only for ourselves. Today, a headline only retains its prevalence as long as it is shared and reposted on social media–these posts tend to be performative and self-serving. Those who exit the Lazy River–leaving their comfort behind–are outliers: their empathy is condemned, sometimes reduced to dramatics. Those who embrace it live by a phrase tucked beneath the roses: “Still, it’s nice to just get away.”
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