The Umbrella is an experiment in the protective necessity of thinking and being. As Carolina Andersson, in her voiceover, mentions putting on a straw hat to protect her from the burning sun, thinking, learning, language or any information, conception is all subject this human need for protection. The Umbrella inquires into these moments of 'contact.' It is a piece that is a deep consideration of violence and prejudice (think of Hiroshima, racial hatred, our current 'war'). This is not at all explicit in the work. The work itself is made of images of a young Swedish woman and a Chinese-American boy and their voiceovers, true accounts of events in their lives. It is highly personal, using introspection and personal relation as a means to explore perceptual moments, studying how perception is turned into thought/conception and memory and in effect behavior. I believe this directly relates to greater acts and patterns of violence in the world, in that these patterns are direct extensions of the formation of each individual's identity, and way of being and sense making. The work captures Carolina Andersson and Jack Sun, compares and juxtaposes them, creating an audio/visual environment in which the participant who experiences the work must also enter into this process of sense making, and therefore into a state of self-overcoming, introspection and questioning the basis on which he/she acts/thinks/exists at every moment. e9a Written by Anonymous