Sara Cwynar will discuss the role of kitsch and politics in forming a shared worldview through familiar images. She will look at design and popular imagery – a set of shared and repeated images and collective ideas that reflect the world to us in books, advertisements, on billboards, and increasingly on the internet. These types of images form a sort of public or shared archive that is common and copious, at least in a western context. Through several book, photography, and film projects, Cwynar will explore how the pattern of these types of images worm their way into our heads and shape our lives, our ideas about ourselves, and our history in ways we may not be able to recognize or think about on a day to day basis. She will also parse notions of value in this context, considering which images and ideas seem important for the long term and which have a brief life before they fade from view.