The nominee and the unicorn
I started my search for materials from Google. As low-key as it sounds, Google Images can be a very useful tool sometimes. By clicking on the "Advanced Image Search" on the right corner, we can actually filter the images by different licenses. So I technically got my all my original materials by searching in Google Image; they do come from different sources, though. Mostly Flickr.com, some are in the public domain like Wikipedia, some are from Art museum and national archive.
It's hard to summarize the "original meaning" of all my original materials; the background, for example, was a mere draft for a palace facade. There was probably no meaning it conveys besides to serve as a work of an architect and guide for workers to build it. It certainly was a beautiful thing to behold for us today and for whichever aristocrat wanted their home done that way 300 years ago; it has to some extent great meaning for the architect today to study history of architecture still. As for the black-white photos and painting that were taken/ done for the famous politicians, they serve as a record of historical events, likely has been on the news page then.
My remix process is fairly simple. I used only Photoshop. A lot cropping and dragging; besides those, not much.
Certainly, Hitler and all the fond fathers of the U.S. would not imagine themselves to appear on such an image as I created, together:) The photos and drawing that were done for them decades and centuries ago, recorded the historical event they were part of, and as "proof" of the once existence of them. In my collage, all the serious significance are smeared; they serve but as still images, memes to evoke thoughts and reflexions.
I made the central figure bigger and more identifiable as suggested during our peer review session.
By Huizi Li