53 stitches : sustainability, ecology and social engagement in contemporary art
- Authors: Salton, Bronwen Lauren
- Date: 2013
- Subjects: Crocheting Community development -- South Africa Ecology in art
- Language: English
- Type: Thesis , Masters , MFA
- Identifier: vital:2390 , http://hdl.handle.net/10962/d1001580
- Description: Through an exploration of both the sculptural and socially-engaged art practices undertaken in creating my Master of Fine Art exhibition, 53 Stitches, I unpack some of the possibilities pertaining to the practice of sustainability, ecology and social engagement in contemporary art. This thesis explores the history and concepts of sustainable development and what the implications are of the far-reaching global consideration of sustainability for contemporary art production. Looking at the writings of Felix Guattari’s (2000 [1989]) and Suzi Gablik’s (1992) on the effects of the economic model of capitalism on our environmental, social and mental ecologies, I discuss the necessary paradigm shift of the artists’ identity from the ‘individual self’ towards the ‘relational self’, affirming our interdependence upon our social and natural environments. With reference to the writings of Maja and Reuben Fowkes (2008), I explore the principles of sustainability in contemporary art and discuss the notion of ‘sustainability of form’ through insight into dematerialisation, recycling and the prospect of artists now becoming knowledge producers/facilitators. This is supportive of my personal exploration and experimentation with recyclable materials as a creative medium, used as a means of knowledge and skills facilitation in socially-engaged arts practice and the process of art-making as research. I refer to the sculptural and ‘painterly’ constructions of Sofi Zezmer and Mbongeni Buthelezi, respectively, as a means to elucidate a practical contextualisation of my practical work, particularly with regard to the use of plastic as a constructive medium. Looking at the works of Linda Weintraub (2006), Marnie Badham (2010) and Miwon Kwon (2002), I expand on the theoretical discourse pertaining to sociallyengaged art practices, and elucidate the reconfiguration of the role of the artist towards now becoming a cultural service administrator, organiser and knowledge facilitator. With reference to Arjen Wals and Johnson et al., I further discuss the role of education in sustainability and explore the necessary reconciliation between university institutions and the social and environmental context in which they are located, in the form of place-based capacity building and service learning. I explore within this thesis the concepts and processbased research of my own sculptures
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- Date Issued: 2013
Coming clean: the treatment of traces
- Authors: Wilmot, Cassandra
- Date: 2013 , 2013-09-13
- Subjects: Salcedo, Doris, 1958- Bereavement in art
- Language: English
- Type: Thesis , Masters , MFA
- Identifier: vital:2442 , http://hdl.handle.net/10962/d1006121
- Description: Coming Clean is a mixed media installation which aims to address and express ambivalent feelings or notions of loss arising particularly in the absence of a comprehensive narrative or history by focussing on what remains. By researching the role of indexical signs and strategies, particularly as they are deployed by the artist Doris Salcedo, I explore the capacity for these traces to not only effectively mark and memorialise loss, but to also convey the state of loss as experienced by the bereaved without providing a narrative account of the events which preceded them. The domestic ritual of washing is both alluded to and used as a metaphor in etchings, photographic prints and readymade objects to illustrate my concerns, with particular emphasis on the dialectic between what is revealed or concealed. Using representations or traces of this task of laundry to examine this dialectic between concealment and revelation, I comment on the anxiety of dealing with incomplete narrative inheritances by considering how traces of the past which impose themselves on the present may affect both remembrance and the ritual of loss, while also taking into account the complexities behind the disclosure of sensitive information in families.
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- Date Issued: 2013
Remembering the traumatic past
- Authors: Tarr, Amie
- Date: 2013
- Subjects: Psychic trauma in art , Memory in art -- South Africa
- Language: English
- Type: Thesis , Masters , MFA
- Identifier: vital:2431 , http://hdl.handle.net/10962/d1004216 , Psychic trauma in art , Memory in art -- South Africa
- Description: In this thesis, I explore my personal family history in relation to the difficulties and challenges raised when representing a trauma in the past. My focus was the Blaaukraantz Bridge railway disaster of 1911, where my great great grandfather, Paul Tarr, was among the 29 victims. The links between my personal family history and the disaster are explored in my art practice. In the mini thesis, I unpack theoretical concerns surrounding memory, loss, and representation of past trauma by examining selected works by Christian Boltanski, Rachel Whiteread and Doris Salcedo. I do not endeavour to provide new insights about early twentieth-century history but instead to engage with different ways of forming narratives about the past. Memory as an alternative form of history writing is the key concept in this thesis in that personal memory and testimony provides an integral perception of the past and important details that would not appear in history texts or other factual forms of writing the past. In this thesis I unpack this issue in relation to my own art practice.
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- Date Issued: 2013
Restitution : seeing past loss and abandonment
- Authors: Greenway, Paul Wayne
- Date: 2013
- Subjects: Digitally printed materials Bereavement in art
- Language: English
- Type: Thesis , Masters , MFA
- Identifier: vital:2389 , http://hdl.handle.net/10962/d1001579
- Description: This dissertation is concerned with loss and abandonment, and together with the practical component, titled Restitution, forms part of a Master of Fine Art degree submission. Both loss and abandonment can take many forms, from the straightforward deterioration, departure or removal of objects to the more complex deterioration of memory, responsibility and dignity. It seems though, that the question, “What has been lost?” is one that is always asked once it is too late. The loss becomes irretrievable and one is left only with fragments and traces. In Chapter 1 issues of liminality and the precariousness of being between states is addressed. Dignity of the ‘other’, in this case the deceased pauper, is interrogated especially with reference to complicity, forensic investigation and the forensic aesthetic. Chapter 2 outlines photographic representation, with attention given to posthumous portraiture, the punctum and memory in the service of permanence and authenticity. Chapter 3 considers the ambition and purpose of the artist through a critique centred on contemporary photographic artist, Sally Mann. Throughout the thesis and exhibition, I am concerned with loss as it relates physically to objects. Metaphorically, I investigate loss and abandonment in relation to dignity and responsibility. In so doing I view death as being the ultimate form of loss, as there is physical loss of the body, as one part of the whole that makes up ‘the person’, as well as the psychological and emotional loss that attends the passing of life. The delayed burial of the deceased therefore is seen to be evidence of abandonment at its extreme. I end by positioning my conclusion around a stop animation series in which I dug a grave and buried a pauper at Mayfield cemetery.
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- Date Issued: 2013
The eyes of the wall : space, narrative and perspective
- Authors: Baasch, Rachel Mary
- Date: 2013
- Subjects: Installations (Art) , Frames (Sociology) , Architecture, Domestic, in art , Narrative art
- Language: English
- Type: Thesis , Masters , MFA
- Identifier: vital:2388 , http://hdl.handle.net/10962/d1001578
- Description: The Eyes of the Wall and Other Short Stories is concerned with dialectics of seeing and perceiving as they pertain directly to a corporal understanding of interiority and exteriority, architectural framing and notions of dislocation in relation to place. This practical submission is a site-specific installation that engages in a reciprocal dialogue with its environment. The individual sculptural works which demarcate the parameters of the installation are hybrids of domestic architectural forms, (namely the wall, the window and the door) and internal furnishings such as the curtain and the bed. These hybridised metal and resin constructions frame the interior of a site, a tennis court located within my immediate Grahamstown environment. The placement of familiar objects generally associated with the home and notions of security and privacy, within the open, exposed and permeable enclosure of the tennis court evoke a sense of displacement within the viewer. This supporting document, The Eyes of the Wall: Space, Narrative and Perspective, considers the key conceptual concerns informing my installation. In this mini-thesis I address the relationship between domestic architecture and the body, examining the notion of framing as fundamental to the individual comprehension of space. I position my work in relation to that of Mona Hatoum drawing on the similarities that exist between her practice and my own. In the first chapter of this paper: My House/Your House: Walls, Windows, Doors and Skins I address the relationship between domestic architecture, framing and the body, and ‘contamination’. Within Chapter Two: Narratives of Division I engage with the idea of multiple ‘short stories’—personal and collective narratives—and their connection to issues of division and dislocation. Chapter Three: Seeing Blindness discusses the possibility that perspective, or at least one potential approach to perspective is concerned with that which one cannot see, an acknowledgment of the implicit relationship between seeing and not-seeing. Each of the three core concerns expressed in the title of this mini-thesis, The Eyes of The Wall: Space, Narrative and Perspective intersect within the site of The Eyes of The Wall and Other Short Stories. It is at this intersection that the shadows of stories within stories within stories insert themselves, like phantom limbs into the gaps and tensions framed by the forms of the installation.
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- Date Issued: 2013