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Sara Rahbar And The Art Of Loving Otherwise, Michael Scott Lahti May 2021

Sara Rahbar And The Art Of Loving Otherwise, Michael Scott Lahti

Theses and Dissertations

Born in Iran and currently working in New York City, Sara Rahbar is a contemporary multimedia artist who gained some acclaim with her Flag series (2006-present), which was inspired by her experiences in the aftermath of 9/11. Many of these works merge Persian fabrics onto the American flag thus expressing her lived history and political views. To shed light on the political nature of Rahbar’s works writ large, I examine a textile from her War series (2009-2013), titled I Want to Shelter You (2013). Against a flat canvas bag, Rahbar attaches large-caliber bullet casings into a heart-shape to point out …


Gender Politics, Presence And Erasure: Tattoo In In Pursuit Of Venus [Infected] And Les Sauvages De La Mer Pacifique, Emily Cornish May 2016

Gender Politics, Presence And Erasure: Tattoo In In Pursuit Of Venus [Infected] And Les Sauvages De La Mer Pacifique, Emily Cornish

Theses and Dissertations

This paper utilizes tattoo as a means for exploring the dialogue between contemporary Maori artist Lisa Reihana’s In Pursuit of Venus [infected] and Joseph Dufour’s nineteenth-century decorative wallpaper Les Sauvages de la Mer Pacifique. I argue that the tattooed body constitutes a re-insertion or re-infection within the pictorial program of In Pursuit of Venus [infected]. As such, tattoo becomes one focal point which allows us to work through four themes investigated by these two artworks: gender identity and ambiguity vis a vis practices that concern bodily adornment, the mutability of looking practices from one culture to another, encounters between different …


Sedimenting Solidarity: Signs From The Madison Protest, Melissa Deann Seifert May 2013

Sedimenting Solidarity: Signs From The Madison Protest, Melissa Deann Seifert

Theses and Dissertations

The 2011 Wisconsin protest inspired the wide ranging production of handmade and commercially-produced signage. Five hundred signs were collected and preserved by the Wisconsin State Historical Society and others were obtained by the Smithsonian Museum of American History. Art historians and prominent art institutes have dismissed the aesthetic qualities of handmade signs, instead cataloging them as ephemeral historical artifacts. I argue that signs work similarly to other art forms in the modern era, such as advertisements and poster art, which have gained scholarly attention. This project uses the Madison protest as a case study in order to track the often …