For all the time humanity has existed, art has been used as a medium of expression capable of telling the human story. All the characteristics of how we are, what we do, what we look like, and how we culturally operate are encoded in art. Art has many mediums.

Today, if our art is preserved imagine what an intelligent civilization would think of the era we lived through, and the legacy of our era? How will the 2010’s decade be remembered, and who will be the ones to tell the story of this era we lived through?

It could be us. Somebody put together a collection of drawings that might just tell the story of what we had to go through in this era. There are characteristics of the modern life we live that are indescribable in words. The most effective medium to convey the struggles of the modern era just might be through illustrations like this.

Al Margen drew these pictures to provide people with an opportunity to think, and reflect on what our society and world has really become. What does it invoke for someone to look at these images? What would a person completely unfamiliar with the culture and attitude of this era think of them, looking back to this era from a time in the distant future?

We are the people who have the power to untangle all the misconceptions and falsehoods that will probably be spoken about our modern era, when our grandchildren are taught about it in the future. History will probably not be reported as it really happened when they look back on the era we live in currently: so it’s up to us to leave a record of how things really were.

(Image credit: Al Margen,/ Collective Evolution)