Garry Sanipass

What if art isn’t just a pretty picture on a wall? I mean, it can be that, and I love beautiful art. But then there’s Banksy — work that isn’t always beautiful in the traditional sense. Sometimes it’s uncomfortable. Sometimes funny. Sometimes political. It exists somewhere between graffiti, protest, and storytelling. People call it “artivism.”

Lately, I’ve been thinking about merging two things that seem like opposites: business and art.

This news report talks about how companies like Meta or YouTube use scientific knowledge about dopamine and human behavior to keep people — especially kids — constantly engaged and addicted to platforms. That’s disturbing. It reveals how psychology, advertising, entertainment, and technology have merged into something much more powerful than we usually admit.

If I’m combining business and art, then I want the work to confront that reality directly.

So I created a mystery box — part artwork, part advertisement, part performance. An ad disguised as an art film. Influenced by the unsettling atmosphere of David Lynch, where things feel symbolic, uncanny, and slightly manipulative. Because contemporary art should reflect contemporary life.

Yes, this is Indigenous art. But it’s Indigenous art speaking about what is affecting people right now, in 2026: algorithms, addiction, consumer psychology, spectacle, media manipulation, and the commodification of attention itself.

I’m not trying to stand outside of that system pretending to be pure. I’m participating in it deliberately, using the same tools — advertising, mystery, anticipation, dopamine, branding — but exposing them at the same time.

I guess this is my artist statement.