Through Defeat is a humument by Alexander Guerrero that was inspired by Tom Philips’s original artistic rendering of text, A Humument. Guerrero’s humument contains a copy of a page located in Act II, Scene III, page 83 of Lorraine Hansberry’s play A raisin in the Sun. The designing of the humument was done by using two tints of brown, one green, black and two tints of gray colored prismacolor colored pencils along with a black .08 micron pen to make the words stand out from the colored pencils. The humument made out of the text from A raisin in the Sun is a trio of flags upon mountains which brings upon the subject of this humument. Alexander also uses the psychology of color to go along with the meaning of the text to further drive the feeling of despair that defeat brings. Simply trying your best does not always mean you will succeed, and that defeat is simply inevitable.
Guerrero uses Hansberry’s Act II, Scene III from A raisin in the sun to completely switch the context of a major turning point in a character and driving it to the ground by making it grim and essentially driving it’s original meaning to the ground. This is where Guerrero puts to play the psychology of color into play by combining the context of the original text along with the colors and the image that is being presented by this humument. Green can be symbolic of envy, in India the color brown denotes mourning, white represents emptiness, black represents pessimism, and finally gray represents isolation.This goes along well with the image being presented in the humument as it shows a field with a trio of flags that represent defeat upon a battlefield or the mourning of a failed dream.
The decision of creating a humument came from one of Guerrero’s experiences in his journey as a graphic designer with little to no experience, as a young boy who has enjoyed drawing to the college student he has become now, he did initially faced opposition from his parents which quickly shattered his dreams in which he felt all the colors that created this humument, however his parent’s opinion were quickly changed and Guerrero began once more with his dream. A Raisin in the sun was also chosen for this sole reason, Guerrero originally planned to go with a more lighthearted humument that spoke about being prideful of one’s roots and origins, however quickly changed it upon realizing how much more fun it is to completely switch the context of a text by simply choosing a few words. Upon discovering the fun in switching the context and being a “villain” to optimism Guerrero created the humument that is presently being shown right now.
As for the text A raisin in the sun by Lorraine Hansberry was chosen for it’s theme of dreams and whether or not one lets them “dry up like a raisin in the sun”. This text also reflects on Guerrero’s past experiences, as well as his morals and how he himself, nearly let his dreams become just that, a raisin that has dried up in the sun. The piece of text that was chosen takes place around the end of the climax and is a major turning point for a character who nearly throws away the pride, future and among many other things of his family all for the sake of money however this character instead decides to reject the money and continue with their original plans of moving forward. In the end this humument was created from flipping the meaning of the text by adding more despair and defeat into the mix, but just like the text the humument can be flipped over to present another meaning of simply not giving up and following those dreams.
