Framing realities : a critical analysis of perspectival distortion in the film Alice by Czech Surrealist Jan Švankmajer
- Authors: Soutter, Simone
- Date: 2021-04
- Subjects: Švankmajer, Jan, 1934- -- Criticism and interpretation , Depression, Mental -- Exhibitions , Perception , Frames (Sociology) , Surrealism -- Influence , Cubism -- Influence , Surrealism in motion pictures , Depression, Mental in art
- Language: English
- Type: thesis , text , Masters , MFA
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/178365 , vital:42933
- Description: My MFA exhibition Through the looking glass; altered states of perception, explores my experience of mental distress: Major Depressive Disorder (MDD), through the medium of painting and multimedia collage. Situated in the Main Fine Art building on Rhodes University campus, this practical submission takes the form of a collection of oil paintings accompanied by an immersive wall of collaged experimentations, depicting the perspectival shifts I have experienced in coping with mental distress. The paintings explore concepts of framing and perspective, both literally and metaphorically in unpacking how our perceptions are manipulated by the way in which situations and concepts are framed. I use strategies and techniques drawn from the Surrealist and Cubist movements in order to depict my distorted experience of time and space, but also to tap into my own unconscious. In this mini-thesis: Framing realities; A critical analysis of perspectival distortion in the film Alice by Czech Surrealist Jan Švankmajer, I explore the strategies and concepts developed during the Surrealist and Cubist movements in relation to strategies used by Švankmajer in his disturbing interpretation of Alice’s Adventures into Wonderland. Here, he visually explores the psyche of an imaginative child. His unique interpretation is expressed through the combination of live-action film and stop-motion animation. I position my work in relation to themes proposed by Maurice Merleau-Ponty, Ernst Jentch, Sigmund Freud and Julia Kristeva. In the first Chapter: Framing and Perspectival shifts, I unpack framing and perspectival shifts exhibited in the Cubist (a physical shift), Dadaist (a social shift), and Surrealist (an unconscious shift) movements. In Chapter Two: A critical analysis of Alice by Jan Švankmajer, I engage in an analysis of themes (examined in the above art movements) relative to the film Alice. These are found objects and assemblages, ambiguity, distortion of scale, the Unconscious, the uncanny and multi-sensory modalities. Chapter Three: Through the Looking Glass; Altered states of perception, I discuss how the themes discussed in Chapter Two apply to my own body of work and how these themes are addressed with regards to my lived experience of mental disorder and distress. , Thesis (MFA) -- Faculty of Humanities, Fine Arts, 2021
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In My Flesh : Fabricating the Bulimic Body
- Authors: Hodgson, Ashley
- Date: 2021-04
- Subjects: Bulimia , Human body -- Social aspects , Human figure in art , Diseases in art , Art therapy
- Language: English
- Type: thesis , text , Masters , MFA
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/177317 , vital:42809
- Description: My MFA exhibition In My Flesh, explores my own personal experience of an eating disorder: bulimia nervosa, through the medium of sculpture and installation. Situated in the Fine Art Sculpture and Painting building on Rhodes University campus, this practical submission takes the form of a multi-sensory installation depicting the fleshy interior of a bulimic body. The sculptural works that make up the installation resemble enlarged bodily forms and cavities, namely the mouth; the oesophagus, the stomach; the intestines; and the flesh. These anatomical forms are made from fabric which has been melted, manipulated, and stained using food and other synthetic dyes. The arrangement of the sculptural components (parts of the body affected by bulimia) does not mirror the human body exactly, and their intentionally disordered placement creates a feeling of dis-ease and disturbance for the participant experiencing the installation. This mini-thesis, In My Flesh: Fabricating the Bulimic Body, unpacks the visual, tactile and audio elements of this practice as research submission as they relate to my interest in bodily boundaries, corporeal traces and material extensions. I look at these themes as they translate into installation, and discuss the way in which bulimia is experienced, theorised and represented. I position my work in relation to the concept of the abject as proposed by Julia Kristeva, and visually analyse artworks by Mona Hatoum, Heidi Bucher and Ernesto Neto who make use of immersive installation strategies that resonate with my own practice. This supporting document considers the three conceptual elements informing my installation: embodiment, space, and materiality. In the first chapter of this document: Embodying the Bulimic Body, I address bulimia as less open to visual interpretations than other eating disorders because of its secretive and hidden nature. I go on to frame the illness in relation to theories around bodily boundaries and abjection and argue that bulimia epitomises abjection. In Chapter Two: Architecture of the Bulimic Body I engage with the idea of architectural structures as having anatomic features. I interrogate how the body moves through space, leaving traces of itself behind. Chapter Three: Fabricating the Bulimic Body concentrates on the main medium used in In My Flesh: fabric. In my discussion of this material, I unpack its metaphoric and symbolic qualities, as well as its personal resonance with my own lived experience. , Thesis (MFA) -- Faculty of Humanities, Fine Art, 2021
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Chirema Chine Mazano Chinotamba Chakazendama Madziro
- Authors: Mapondera, Wallen
- Date: 2020
- Subjects: Art, Zimbabwean , Art -- Economic aspects -- Zimbabwe , Artists -- Zimbabwe , Takadiwa, Moffet , Nyandoro, Gareth , Clottey, Serge Attiku , Mapondera, Wallen -- Exhibitions
- Language: English
- Type: text , Thesis , Masters , MFA
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/147457 , vital:38638
- Description: This mini-thesis has developed as a practice-based supporting document to the exhibition Chirema Chine Mazano Chinotamba Chakazendama Madziro. The exhibition responds to how people become innovative in finding alternative means of survival and staying relevant in an economically depressed country. Zimbabwe is often the first country that comes to mind when people talk about hyperinflation; the situation was and still is intolerable, but somehow its citizens find means to pull through. Unemployment and poverty are the main causes of physical and mental problems for an individual. With this thesis, I highlight the innovations employed by Zimbabweans as a way of keeping themselves busy. I approach this through analysing the Zimbabwean general public’s creative reactions, and by tracing Zimbabwean visual artists’ use of found objects as a reaction to the country’s economic hardships. As people have been pushed to find alternative ways of survival, Zimbabwean artists in particular also shifted from using conventional art materials due to their unavailability. They began to redefine what art material is by employing objects in their artworks that previously had a non-art function. As such, there is a growing need to recognise, classify and document the shifts and establish platforms to generate growth of these innovations. In this minithesis I discuss my own practice, and I analyse the works of Moffat Takadiwa, Gareth Nyandoro and Serge Attiku Clottey.
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Creative production and existential thought: a feminist existential analysis of South African visual artist Berni Searle’s artwork
- Authors: Mokwena, Palesa
- Date: 2020
- Subjects: Women artists -- South Africa , Women artists, Black -- South Africa , Existentialism and art , Feminism and art -- South Africa , Searle, Berni
- Language: English
- Type: text , Thesis , Masters , MFA
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/148005 , vital:38701
- Description: Through an analysis of the work of South African artist Berni Searle, my study will investigate feminist existential ideas and concepts that have been explored by various creative producers in and outside of Europe/South Africa through different forms of creative productions and under different epistemological categories. ‘Canons’ of European existentialist/feminist thought often exclude the existence of feminist existential knowledge productions and producers outside of Europe. In conducting this study, I am responding to the past and present separatist and identitarian categorisations of creative productions from black/African creative producers, particularly women creative producers in South Africa, creating an alternative canonisation around their selected works. Although canons have been and can be used to drive separatist and identitarian categorisations, it is my hope to elucidate a discourse around the preservations and acknowledgements of South African creative and knowledge productions through a feminist existential framework that canonises important black feminist existentialist works and thereby brings to light their intellectual contributions over and above their identities. My development of a South African feminist existentialism is an attempt to graft a more intersectional, holistic framework to introduce in the feminist and existential discourses, and to proffer a new intersectional holistic paradigm of discussing categories that do not limit creative productions. To frame this research, I will reflect on the politics of historical and contemporary South African society as it is reflected in the works of the chosen creative producers and theorists and to question how we respond as creative feminist existentialists to contemporary South African struggles and how such a lens can be activated as a creative-theoretical tool of investigation.
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Petits récits: creative perspectives of Chinese encounters in Zambia
- Authors: Mwaba, Stary
- Date: 2020
- Subjects: Personal narratives , Lyotard, Jean-François, 1924-1998 , Art and society -- Zambia , Social practice (Art) -- Zambia , Art and globalization -- Zambia , China -- Relations -- Zambia , Storytelling in art , Colonization in art
- Language: English
- Type: Thesis , Masters , MFA
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/146355 , vital:38518
- Description: This mini-thesis, which supports my MFA exhibition Black Mountain, articulates on-the- ground creative perspectives of the Zambia-China discourse, through the representation of little narratives - les petits récits - connected to personal experiences. Through my creative production as an artist, I respond to perceptions of the Chinese presence in Africa. I utilize historical and contemporary personal narratives to complicate existing perceptions of Chinese presence in my home context of Zambia. “Petit récits”, or “little narratives”, in Francois Lyotard’s term, refers to personal stories of individuals that subvert dominant master-narratives and their legitimization in social-cultural structure. In the case of China’s presence in Zambia, I refer to the dichotomized narratives in the media as metanarratives which pay little attention to the people on the ground and propose the approach of “little narratives” to foreground the lived experiences of Zambians who have individual encounters with Chinese in various social spaces. By employing the narratives of my family members through installations, paintings, and drawings, I intervene in a broader China-Africa discourse that is often driven by economics and politics, and I attach importance to the little narratives. In my thesis I divide my material into three chapters; each chapter grows out of an encounter with the presence of China (and Chinese people) in Zambia in relation to the very personal narratives of family members - Zoë my daughter, my grandma, and Ngolo my cousin. The first chapter focuses on my work Chinese Cabbage as my entry point to this topic, which is based on a school experiment I did with my daughter Zoë. In this chapter I also discuss the current discourses around China’s presence. Chapter two revisits the Zambian-Chinese historical encounters in memory of my grandma’s insaka stories about the construction of TAZARA Railway, and thus my works discussed in this chapter attach importance to the individual engagements from a historical perspective. Chapter three discusses in particular the controversial issues around Black Mountain and the works inspired by my cousin Ngolo’s stories of mining in Black Mountain and dealing with the Chinese traders.
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The digital and the hyperreal, with reference to artwork by Signe Pierce and Lauren King
- Authors: King, Lauren Pascal
- Date: 2020
- Subjects: Women in art , Femininity in art , Figurative art , Cyberspace -- Social aspects , Feminine beauty (Aesthetics) , Online identities , Photo-realism , Computer art , Virtual reality in art , Reality in art , Art, Modern -- 21st century , Feminist art criticism , Pierce, Signe
- Language: English
- Type: Thesis , Masters , MFA
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/147939 , vital:38688
- Description: This MFA is a visual art critical investigation of digital representations, manipulations, and exploitations of feminine figures in cyberspace. The particular focus of this study is centred on the work of self-titled reality artist Signe Pierce, as well as my own practical body of work: The Digital Feminine. Case studies of Pierce’s practice include Big Sister (2016), Halo (2018), American Reflexxx (2013) and Reality Hack (2016). Through these case studies I examine the nature of identity formation online as underscored by notions of performativity as well as arguments for the use of feminine aesthetics as feminist critique, specifically through the use of the ‘Venus Flytrapping’ method. Jean Baudrillard famously theorised the hyperreal and the simulacra, claiming that human experience is a simulation of reality1. My MFA thesis addresses contemporary concerns relating to issues of reality, perception, the gaze, and identity in an increasingly virtual world. The 20th century witnessed massive changes in technology, and its subsequent commercialisation marked new territories for mass media, politics, entertainment, social life, and the art world. Avant-garde modern art movements shattered previously held standards of traditional artistic production, thus ideas surrounding the ‘art object’ and the role of artists themselves were fundamentally changed. In a postmodern world where nothing is sacred and life is experienced through the simulacra of the screen, the hyperreal takes over. I investigate how real-world socio-political issues, particularly those related to gender, transcend into the digital realm of cyberspace through discussions of Donna Harraway’s ‘cyborg feminism’ and Judith Butler’s ideas of gender performativity, as well as Erving Goffman’s ideas of everyday performativity. My final body of work for the professional art practice component of this MFA is realised in the form of an immersive installation that straddles the virtual and the real. Influenced by digital and hyperreal aesthetics (such as VapourWave), this installation also explores various expressions of femininity that an individual can express both online and in real life.
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The use of ritual as physical and spiritual medium and its documentation in Buhlebezwe Siwani’s contemporary visual arts performance
- Authors: Lila, Philiswa
- Date: 2020
- Subjects: Arts and religion , Ritual -- South Africa , Performance art -- Religious aspects -- South Africa , Women performance artists -- South Africa , Siwani, Buhlebezwe, 1987-
- Language: English
- Type: text , Thesis , Masters , MFA
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/166160 , vital:41334
- Description: This thesis is motivated by my experience of Inzilo: Ngoba ngihlala kwabafileyo, a live performance by South African visual artist Buhlebezwe Siwani. The performance took place at Michaelis Galleries, University of Cape Town (UCT), as part of a group exhibition Between Subject and Object: human remains at the interface of art and science (2014), which accompanied the Medical Humanities in Africa Conference (from 28 – 29 August 2014). As an entry into my discussion, I describe how Siwani’s performance makes use of death and burial ritual in what seems to be an intention to make art that is (re)presenting an activity of reality to invade and control the sphere of feelings, emotions and a sense of ceremony that is dependent on both ritual and rites of the performance. I grapple with the fact that I experienced a ritual performance in a gallery space. Furthermore, I question how walking out of the performance I thought of the lines between art and/or life. The role of ritual in my thesis explores the symbolic meanings, powers and intentions of ritual rites in Africa. This reflection maps out historical locations that are relevant to the major debates, definitions, themes and the experiences of ritual as part of academic research. From Siwani’s practice as an artist and isangoma to other expressions in the fields of history, sociology, religion, feminism, to mention a few, my thesis is an enquiry that engages ritual and performance art theory and scholarship. Through a qualitative analysis, my methodology rejects a chronological, thematic and discipline centered research. Rather, I use a multidisciplinary approach based on critical visual analysis as knowledge creation in the visual arts, for example archives, documentation, performance, text, video, installation, painting, sculpture, etc. The findings suggests that the role of ritual in performance art is not a singular exploration, nor is it based on separating ritual and performance art. The results further reveal that ritual in performance art is not a reenactment of patterns and human behaviours, nor is the notion of reenactment used to denote the myriad meanings and functions of re-performing historical ritual events into performance art. Throughout, my thesis provides a focus that demonstrates the significance of how ritual in performance art has a profound subjective (personal or individual) and collective holistic way of serving human and spiritual needs, and that of creating an environment that is open to the content and context of art as it relates with traditional African religious practices, beliefs and knowledges. Focus is given to three major themes that make up the three chapters of my research: firstly, I reflect on death as personified by Siwani’s performance Inzilo: Ngoba ii ngihlala kwabafileyo and her role as isangoma. Here death is used to draw specific attention to the body in process of embodied presence and absence of physical and spiritual worlds. Secondly, drawing on Siwani’s concept of secrecy and boundaries of concealing and revealing rituals meanings and powers as isangoma, I question the role of secrets, which highlights the significance of bodies (human and natural sites of ritual) in ritual performance. Finally, the idea of a trace is explored. The intersecting use of a trace as the thinking-making-doing of ritual in performance articulates a connected thread that sets in motion the trace of ritual (installation, image and marked space pf ritual) as an afterlife that offers a continued space of processual ceremony for multiple effective encounters and movements..
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Ukwowa mumwela nabangeli: transcendence, flight and inculturation in Zambian devotional artwork
- Authors: Mulenga, Aaron Samuel
- Date: 2020
- Subjects: Idols and images in art -- Zambia , Transcendence (Philosophy) in art , Christianity and culture -- Zambia , Flight in art , Christian art and symbolism -- Zambia , Representation (Philosophy) , Black people in art , Ethnicity in art , Group identity in art , Art and society -- Zambia , Yombwe, Laurence
- Language: English
- Type: Thesis , Masters , MFA
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/146278 , vital:38511
- Description: With a focus on my artistic practice, this paper seeks to interrogate the tensions and overlaps in various representations of transcendence that have shaped my spirituality by interrogating how these have featured in Eurocentric Christian iconography and Zambian cultural practices, particularly cultural artefacts used for spiritual flight, housed in Zambian museums. Transcendence is understood by some as a change in a person’s physiological or psychological state that allows them to go beyond their experience of time, place or being. I understand transcendence to be the moment that one’s spirit is elevated beyond the limitations of their physical body. The use of Biblical text relating to flight will also be discussed as a comparative study to explore how transcendence through flight operates within Christianity and a Zambian cultural context. Furthermore, I shall interrogate how black artists (particularly Zambian), such as Laurence Yombwe, address the omission of black people from Christian iconography (which is predominantly depicted as white people). I aim to highlight the important role that representation plays in allowing for an individual to experience transcendence. I believe inculturation is a fitting solution to address some of the pitfalls in Christian iconography brought about due to the lack of representation of black people. Inculturation can be understood as an adaptation in the way the gospel of Jesus is preached to non-Christian cultures, and in turn, how these cultures influence the teachings of the gospel. Finally, I will explore how transcendence as a concept applies in my artworks and how the materials I use highlight this concept. Through my art, I grapple to combine what seem like disparate spiritual paradigms, arising from my culture and my faith. My artwork seeks to contribute to the work that particular artists (a majority of them black) are grappling with to correct the lack of representation of black people in Christian iconography. I will use the notion of inculturation as an avenue through which to interrogate the tensions I experience while exploring the concept of transcendence.
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Visualising the Psyche: Perspectives on mental health in the medium of comics
- Authors: Solomon, Tayla Shan
- Date: 2020
- Subjects: Spiegelman, Art -- Maus , Kelly, Joe, 1971- -- I kill giants , Niimura, J M Ken -- I kill giants , Brosh, Allie -- Hyperbole and a half , Comic books, strips, etc. -- Psychological aspects , Comic books, stripa, etc. -- Therapeutic use
- Language: English
- Type: text , Thesis , Masters , MFA
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/148413 , vital:38737
- Description: The field of Psychology is constantly shifting in its understanding of mental health. Scholars have been critiquing Psychology’s narrow perspective of what constitutes ‘normal’. Many dealing with mental health issues fear that they will be misunderstood and are confronted with systems and institutions that they find unempathetic. This mini-thesis conceptualises creative empathy as a solution to these problems. It is based on the idea that every experience is unique and therefore cannot be wholly understood without engaging in an imaginative process. The appropriateness of the comics medium as a tool for promoting this strategy is explored with a focus on the use of visual imagery to tell stories of distressing experiences. It looks at Tayla Shan Solomon’s The Adventures of Apparently-Anyone-Can-Do-It-If-TheyJust-Try Bug! (2019), Art Spiegelman’s Maus (I & II) (1986), Joe Kelly and JM Ken Niimura’s I Kill Giants (2011), and Allie Brosh’s Hyperbole and a Half: unfortunate situations, flawed coping mechanisms, mayhem, and other things that happened (2013). This mini-thesis analyses various techniques employed by comics artists to create compelling stories of idiosyncratic experiences, including the use of symbolic imagery and framing.
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Zundiqondisise!: investigating voice, visibility and agency in the work of Xhosa women crafters who work in community art centres in the Eastern Cape
- Authors: Tutani, Zodwa
- Date: 2020
- Subjects: Art centers -- Eastern Cape , Community arts projects -- Eastern Cape , Women artists, Black -- Eastern Cape , Ethnic art -- Eastern Cape , Agent (Philosophy) , Art and society -- Eastern Cape , Voice (Philosophy) , Critical discourse analysis , Postcolonialism and the arts , Feminism and art , Curatorship -- Eastern Cape , Art, Xhosa -- Conservation and restoration , Gompo Community Art Centre , Nomzamo Old Age Centre
- Language: English
- Type: Thesis , Masters , MFA
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/146546 , vital:38535
- Description: A curatorial practice, Zundiqondisise! Reclaiming Our Voice is a twofold study comprised of curatorial practice and a written thesis, both of which are interdependent, examining the significance of space, agency, voice, and visibility in the works of Xhosa women crafters from the Eastern Cape. The study explores ways of reading and displaying indigenous art, as well as the archiving and inserting of these essential but neglected creative works of black women into the discourse of South African contemporary visual arts. This scholarship takes into account the social, cultural, and labour conditions that give rise to the perceived voicelessness in the ‘craft’ work of Xhosa women who work from community art centres. Through collaborating with two groups of women from two Eastern Cape art centres, namely Gompo Community Art Centre in East London and Nomzamo Old Age Centre in Ilitha Township, the study undertakes to locate, highlight and authorise these women’s voices and agency. This undertaking is carried out through a textual inquiry and curated exhibition, two interdependent components of this study, working with black feminist and postcolonial theories that enable me to formulate a critical discourse and practice towards a reflective scholarship on black women’s ‘craft’ work. It is a scholarship whose various chapters and curatorial interventions are tailored to excavate ancient Xhosa wisdom found in folklore and cultural practices of the everyday. This scholarship also provides new understandings that demonstrate and appreciate the fertile and significant though marginalised indigenous ways of creative expressions and knowledge production.
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Narratives and home: remembering an almost forgotten walk
- Authors: Bezuidenhout, Natasha Belinda
- Date: 2019
- Subjects: Home in literature , Home in art , Artists -- South Africa
- Language: English
- Type: text , Thesis , Masters , MFA
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/115039 , vital:34072
- Description: The title of my exhibition Bittersoet alludes to the self-exploratory nature of my practice, as I interrogate the personal memories associated with objects that characterise the relationship between myself and my mother (mamma). This supporting document, Narratives and Home: Remembering an almost forgotten walk, considers the key conceptual concerns informing my practice. In this mini-thesis, I address the question: ‘What is a home?’. Drawing from my own Fine Art Practice, I explore how home can be examined as a product of the imagination, rather than only as a physical place. I consider how ‘home’ is constructed as the primary objective within an ideological framework defined by history, memory and narrative. Engaging beyond the idea of ‘home’ as a fixed structure or place, I examine the idea of ‘home’ as something fluid that is negotiated and defined by the interaction between objects and language. It is concerned with dialectics of memory and narrative as they pertain directly to an experience of both searching for and reimagining home through metaphorical representations. In particular, I explore how home can be seen as equally familiar and unfamiliar, existing in-between, always changing, never fixed, rather in a constant state of flux. The concept of home is addressed in a dialogical process by using Afrikaans as my mother tongue, I narrate informal conversations between myself and my mother. These conversations transform and expand into hybrid words, memories and narratives to form a layered continuous dialogue between my practice and research. This notion relates to exploring oneself and the ‘fictions’ of the past. The self being fundamental to the individual comprehension of both ‘place’ and ‘space’.
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A counter-narrative analysis of psychological riot in contemporary painting
- Authors: Ng’ok, Ivy Chemutai
- Date: 2018
- Subjects: Painting -- South Africa , Painting -- Psychological aspects , Distress (Psychology) in art , Imperialism in art , Violence in art , Patriarchy in art Political art
- Language: English
- Type: text , Thesis , Masters , MFA
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/60458 , vital:27782
- Description: I am rioting against a system of my own beliefs about the world. In my mind, I struggle to overcome these beliefs, hence, I construct the psychological riot as ‘the disturbance of the mind’. In this mini-thesis, I argue that it exists in the psyche too. This definition of psyche becomes painterly. My psychological riot is difficult to trace, let alone paint. The beliefs that I target are patriarchy within a post-colonial context. I use theories that are simultaneously psychological and corporeal. They address violence colonialist system. The psychological riot is an practical submission.
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Featuring simplicity: jargon and access in contemporary South African art
- Authors: Bereng, Lerato
- Date: 2018
- Language: English
- Type: text , Thesis , Masters , MFA
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/60479 , vital:27784
- Description: The focus of this paper is an exploration of curating and its various forms as understood in a South African art context. In order to understand this context I examine definitions of South African publics as well as different curatorial models. I raise questions around art and accessibility as well as the functions of language as a gate keeper within the visual arts. Through a practical exploration of curatorial methods of engagement, I assess the curator's role as disseminator of information. My final project Conversations at Morija that was held in Morija, Lesotho faces the challenge of curating within a space that has a strong creative platform, but lacks a visual art audience. The exhibition was held during the 2013 Morija Art and Culture festival which is dominated by its music component. Despite Morija being the country's creative centre and sole museum, there is little support for its programme both monetary and in terms of attendance. Through a series of conversations several issues pertaining to Morija, Lesotho and the diaspora were addressed. I look at the absence of creative platforms and alternative curatorial methods that engage the public in a participatory manner. Briefly exploring questions of migrant labour and definitions of what constitutes a diaspora. I look at relatable ways to engage the local audience whilst maintaining a creative core in which to spark dialogue around pertinent matters relating to the country.
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FyaMoneka: exploring the erasure of women within Zambian history
- Authors: Kalichini, Gladys Melina
- Date: 2018
- Subjects: Women -- Zambia -- Historiography , Women -- Zambia -- History , Women -- Political activity -- Zambia , Women -- Zambia -- Social conditions , Collective memory -- Zambia , Death in art , Feminism -- Zambia , Male domination (Social structure) -- Zambia , Sex discrimination against women -- Zambia
- Language: English
- Type: text , Thesis , Masters , MFA
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/63186 , vital:28371
- Description: This Master of Fine Art submission, comprising of an exhibition and mini-thesis, explores the erasure of women’s narratives from Zambian history and collective memory. As a point of entry into the broader conversation of narratives of women marginalised in certain historicised events, this research analyses the narratives of Julia Chikamoneka and Alice Lenshina that are held in the collective memory of Zambian history. It focuses on the representations of narratives of women during and beyond colonial times, while hinging particularly on these two characters’ encounters with and against British rule in Northern Rhodesia (Zambia). Titled FyaMoneka: Exploring the Erasure of Women Within Zambian History, the mini-thesis examines the representations and positioning of women’s political activities within the liberation narrative that is recorded in the National Archives of Zambia (NAZ) and the United National Independence Party (UNIP) Archives. This mini-thesis highlights the fact that women have been written out of Zambia’s liberation narrative in the NAZ and the UNIP Archives, and remains mindful of the inherent modifications and erasures of women’s accounts over time, including the obfuscation or the absence of certain archival materials. This mini-thesis prospectively reconstructs Chikamoneka’s and Lenshina’s narratives using traces of their histories within collective memory through re/visiting processes of re-archivisation. The exhibition, titled ChaMoneka (It Has Become Visible): UnCasting Shadows, explores death and representations of death, where death is conceptualised as a metaphor for the erasure of women’s historical narratives, whereas the body represents the narrative. Based on an exploration of the relationship and tensions between collective memory and history, death within this exhibition is thematised as the course of fading away and a continuous process in which women’s narratives are erased.
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“Forgetting Ntaba kaNdoda”: reciting performative memories at the Ntaba kaNdoda Monument
- Authors: Mama, Luthando Vukile James
- Date: 2018
- Subjects: Memorialization , Collective memory in art , Memorials in art , Memorials -- South Africa -- Dimbaza , Imperialism in art , Ntaba kaNdoda Monument (Dimbaza, South Africa)
- Language: English
- Type: text , Thesis , Masters , MFA
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/63866 , vital:28499
- Description: “Forgetting Ntaba kaNdoda”: Reciting Performative Memories at the Ntaba kaNdoda Monument serves as a theoretical examination of the Ntaba kaNdoda Monument as a commemorative marker. My mini-thesis unpacks the notions of memory and performative memorialisation at a nationalist memorial in the former Ciskei by examining the concepts of place, memory and memorialisation, which are theoretically integral in my professional practice. This research initiates an investigation into the effects on memory in a situation where the construction of the Monument disrupted an efficacious memorialisation by the communities of Ntaba kaNdoda. In my accompanying MFA exhibition Forgetting Ntaba kaNdoda, I explore notions of place, memory and memorialisation through installations of a variety of photographic processes that are based on what I call ‘de-monumental’ and performative monuments (Widrich2014). The written component of my MFA submission relates directly to my professional art practice, developing and situating it within a relevant context. In my mini-thesis, I consider photographers working with notions of place, memory and memorialisation. Lebohang Kganye and Nassim Rouchiche’s works retrace and recall past memory in the present, while David Goldblatt and Cedric Nunn, who have photographed the Ntaba kaNdoda Monument, point the viewer to the values and histories of the communities most affected by colonialism and apartheid. These photographers’ works operate as mnemonic devices that seek to translate a lived experience at a particular place. I use Widrich’s (2009; 2014) conception of “performative monuments”, Lippard’s (1997) “sense of place” and Nora’s (1989) “lieu[x] de mémoire” and “milieux de mémoire” in approaching my professional art practice and my research into the Ntaba kaNdoda memorial. Using these entwining nodes of theories in formulating what I term ‘demonumentalisation’ in my photography practice at the Ntaba kaNdoda Monument, my photography functions as both performative memorialisation and de-monumentalisation. Remembrance, using photography as a vehicle to represent this notion at Ntaba kaNdoda, transcends the materiality of the Monument. My exhibition, in conjunction with this mini-thesis, therefore reframes and reconfigures theNtaba kaNdoda Monument as a multiplex memory place.
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Closed doors: gendered power relations and the use of mature themes in Eurocentric fairytales
- Authors: Sawyer, Kathleen Patricia
- Date: 2017
- Language: English
- Type: Thesis , Masters , MFA
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/5971 , vital:21003
- Description: Established critics, such as Jack Zipes, assert that the subject matter of fairytales shows evidence that the Westernised 'classics' (by authors such as Charles Perrault or the Grimm brothers) were influenced by the cultural norms of their contemporary society and served as a pedagogical tool for mass socialisation. Often authors writing for younger audiences deliberately inserted a moralising function into these tales, in order to normalise and further disseminate certain gender ideals. Their presentation of adult or mature themes (such as sexuality) is often problematic, with some references presented quite naturally and others excluded entirely. This paper investigates modern retellings of Eurocentric fairytales, and speculates on the significance of the perpetuation or complete elision of such themes, and what their selective invocation might intimate about the culture in which the story is produced. It argues that the way in which the fairytale narrative engages with mature themes is demonstrative of its contemporary ethos and its associated cultural bias, which is conveyed unconsciously through the vehicle of the text. Through a critical analysis of relevant literature, the paper explores the maintenance of socio-cultural norms in fairytales as being emblematic in their establishment as cultural relics.
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Contemporary Zambian art, conceptualism and the ‘global’ art world
- Authors: Mulenga, Andrew Mukuka
- Date: 2017
- Language: English
- Type: Thesis , Masters , MFA
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/5187 , vital:20784
- Description: In Zambia, ‘contemporary art’ (as a category constructed by the European-dominated international art world), was introduced by the European settler community and continued within its preserve, remaining largely inaccessible to the indigenous community of Africans until Zambia’s independence in 1964. This thesis traces the integration of Africans into the contemporary art community and attributes the process, in part, to a small group of artists of European descent who played a significant role in engaging with Zambians, working side by side with them, subsequently influencing their art production and implicitly shaping the ways in which ‘Zambian’ art ‘ought to’ look for decades to come. The research traces the early days of contemporary art practice in Zambia to the Lusaka Art Society and Art Centre Foundation that was founded and run by an all-settler group of formally trained artists with a particular inclination towards sculpture and painting. In the wake of the integration however, art production in the formalist manner was further proliferated by the European diplomatic community which would also go as far as dictating artistic subject matter. This thesis argues that the Eurocentric and pre-eminently formalist approach to contemporary art has cost Zambian artists an international presence. I submit that the few instances where contemporary Zambian art practice has penetrated the ‘global art’ scene or caught the attention of international curators is due to artists adopting more radical conceptual approaches to art production, often creating tensions with local viewers. This thesis also examines conceptualism in contemporary Zambian art practice and examines the inequalities of the ‘global art’ world. I argue that conceptual art, although not generally accepted on the Zambian art scene, has played a vital role in helping Zambian artists enter the global art world, albeit modestly.
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Queering boundaries: visual Activism and representations of sexuality in the work of contemporary South African artists
- Authors: Littleford, Lara
- Date: 2017
- Subjects: Homosexuality in art -- South Africa , Photographers, Black -- South Africa , Gay photographers -- South Africa , Lesbian photographers -- South Africa , Transgender people in art -- South Africa , Muholi, Zanele , Mlangeni, Sabelo
- Language: English
- Type: Thesis , Masters , MFA
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/17816 , vital:22283
- Description: Zanele Muholi, a photographer and visual activist, and Sabelo Mlangeni, a photographer, explore the different ways of representing gender, particularly transgenderism, and sexuality, particularly homosexuality, in their photography. Muholi and Mlangeni document the daily lives and lived realities of people who are black and gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) in South Africa. African sexuality remains a contested subject that is difficult to discuss in light of the controversies it provokes due to colonial attitudes toward African bodies. In this instance, colonial attitudes toward African sexuality have exoticised African bodies. Moreover, hyper-sexuality is ascribed to bodies that are black and male, whilst fetishising and objectifying black female bodies. Furthermore, representations of homoeroticism in Africa transgress and challenge dominant ideologies of sexuality and gender in an African context. In this sense, Muholi and Mlangeni directly address tension and resistance between individual and community. Such tensions are found within and between categories of African-ness, whereby homosexuality and transgenderism are regarded as being ‘un-African’ and an import from the West. For example, Muholi represents the existence of homosexuality and transgenderism in her photography in order to subvert the notion that homosexuality is ‘un-African’, attempting to complicate the conceptions of identity, gender and sexuality in South Africa. Muholi’s photography is used as a vehicle for her ‘visual activism’, which purports to create socio-political awareness surrounding homophobia, transgenderism, and epistemic injustice in South Africa. The visual imagery of these two artists investigates the boundaries that are set by various social, political and cultural constructs. These boundaries inform existing social, political and cultural attitudes toward homosexuality and transgenderism, and these homophobic and transphobic attitudes result in crimes committed against homosexual and transgender individuals, such as hate crimes, which includes ‘curative/corrective’ rape, the prevalence of which is rising at an alarming rate. Muholi’s photography and visual activism seek to create visibility in order to raise public awareness of hate crimes, victimisation, alienation and stigmatisation that homosexual and transgender South Africans, specifically those individuals living in township areas, face on a daily basis. These two artists represent sexuality as a site of contestation and, as such, heteronormative traditions, hegemonic social structures, and cultural conventions are transgressed and contested in their photography.
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Representing the unrepresentable: an exploration of gendered experiences of mental disorder
- Authors: Futcher, Charis Catheryn
- Date: 2017
- Subjects: Mental illness in art , Women -- Mental health , Art, South African -- 21st century -- Exhibitions , Sculpture, South African -- 21st century -- Exhibitions , Women in art
- Language: English
- Type: Thesis , Masters , MFA
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/42957 , vital:25252
- Description: Inspired by personal lived experiences of mental disorder; this thesis attempts to explore the representation of these complex conditions as they are deeply embedded in trauma, guilt, and stigma. The accompanying exhibition, The Inheritance, figures my own tendencies to contain and conceal my disorder, through the assembling of sculptural containers and their disordered contents. The work, presented as something surreal, comments on the complexities of being a woman with a disorder, as well as on the disease I experience in relation to a history of patriarchal ideologies and psychiatric containment that has informed understandings of ‘female madness’. Grounded in my interests in abjection and containment, the artistic processes of trying to express deeply personal experiences of distress allow for the resurfacing of underlying trauma, in regards to the memory of my mother’s struggle with Bipolar disorder and her subsequent estrangement. Instead of catharsis, the exhibition represents an inevitable failure to represent the unrepresentable, an experience inextricably bound to the history of gendered oppression and the repression of subjectivity by dominant powers of belief and control. Through my practice as research, I have ultimately grappled with my reluctance to represent my experience, precisely because the topic of mental disorder, though pervasive, is lived and felt by varying groups of people in different ways. As such, my intention is to avoid a reductive and narrow framing of what mental disorder entails. Similarly, I aim to avoid restrictive and presumptuous definitions of gender – recognizing that, historically, femininity is a contested category that has silenced many individuals who are not white, heterosexual or gender conforming. My literary research has been limited by these norms and silences, in that most texts detailing the historical visual treatment of disordered subjects fail to recognise the possibility of gender categories that transcend the binary masculinity and femininity. With these limitations in mind, my practice has allowed me to reflect upon the distress of generations of people who have been pathologised based on gender.
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These aesthetics are not new: Post-Internet conditions and their effect on contemporary ideas of representation in Painting
- Authors: Grecia, Callan
- Date: 2017
- Subjects: Art and the internet , Digital media -- Philosophy , Technology and the arts , Aesthetics , Painting -- Philosophy
- Language: English
- Type: Thesis , Masters , MFA
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/46333 , vital:25601
- Description: These Aesthetics Are Not New draws inspiration from the effect of digital technological progress on a consumer society. The Internet as a source of ubiquitous imagery reaffirms the idea that in a Post-Internet age there is nothing new, only conditions affected by a networked way of life. In this thesis I attempt to question contemporary ideas of representation and art making, specifically within the medium of oil paint, in a digitally consumed culture of instantaneous access. I interrogate the repetitive imagery that pervades our online experiences, and I speak about how I use my grasp of painterly knowledge and lexicon to replicate digital conditions in the real world to further cement my position that contemporary aesthetics, (digital, physical or both) are not new. I first introduce the reader to the idea of the Post-Internet, exploring the digital’s encroachment on our physical spaces and it’s relation to the politics of the medium of Oil Paint. I then address the concept of the Image-Object, and unpack this idea by comparing and contrasting emoji’s in relation to gestural mark making and the ascription of meaning through iconographic methods in Oil Painting. This culminates in an analysis of my physical practice in relation to these ideas, and concludes with my observations on the future of our ways of seeing, as affected by the Internet and technological progression.
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