Helen Ives ‘26

WUJUR (2026) | Cite this work

Abstract

This paper examines the work of WashU Sam Fox senior Emma Wang. Specifically, it contextualizes Wang’s practice within the history of hippie modernism, a 1960s art movement of artists, designers, and theorists with dual interests in both alternative ways of living and the development of new technologies of the period. Using Wang’s seminal artwork Revelation 21 (Kaleidoscope) as a primary case study, the paper uses Wang’s contemporary art practice to examine the religious undertones of the hippie modernist period. In doing so, this paper is an introduction of Wang and her work to the public and exhibits how Wang’s art is reflective of larger ecological concerns today.

Divided into three sections, the paper begins with a brief introduction to Wang, her practice, and the concept of hippie modernism. The second section of the paper begins with a visual analysis of Revelation 21, its specific design choices, and how its religious undertones reflect larger contemporary anxieties concerning climate change and religion. Following this analysis, the second section compares Wang’s work to religious movements in the 1960s involved in shaping hippie modernist thought. The third section of the paper works comparatively, considering how the functional and aesthetic aspects of Wang’s piece compare alongside hippie modernist works such as Jackie Cassen and Rudi Stern’s Environment V: Vibrations. Through this comparative analysis, the third section expands upon the initial argument, interrogating the use of psychedelics (literally and aesthetically) in religious practice, and the capacity of Wang’s work to operate as a visual representation of an “environment of the mind.”

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Citation (APA)

Ives, H. (2026). Emma Wang: Contemporary Revelations and Hippie Modernisms. WUJUR, 2(2), 45-51.

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Helen, Ives. Washington University in St. Louis.
Corresponding Author. Send correspondence to h.ives@wustl.edu.

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