"The Medium is the Message"

The first picture in the series shows a steam ship. Around the turn of the century, ocean-crossing steam ships including luxury liners and transport ships were becoming more and more common. Because of the dependable nature of the ship's machinery and the regularity of the trips, such a journey became less of a journey and much more affordable. In that way steam ships came to represent an easier connection to new lands and as a medium conveyed the idea of progress.

One of the precious cargos the steam ships carried were droves and droves of immigrants. Finally having the affordable oppourtunity to travel across and start anew, they boarded the ships and set out. As a medium these people represented change and hope, as the middle picture is widely understood to mean.

This second medium carried within it a third. Every immigrant arriving to new lands (notably America) brought with them their culture. This culture as a medium represented a very different way of living, and even between people from the same country the culture could vary greatly. As a result this culture became imbedded in the places where they settled, turning them into something more familiar or welcoming.

So while the three pictures above are not traditional mediums, they are each symbols containing well understood messages, one within the other, each in some way an extension of the one that came before. In that way they are the messages themselves, completely indistinguishable their central concepts.