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Queer Bodies: Homoeroticism, Sensuality, And Erotica In Postmodern Fine Art Photography, Rosa Michel Pace Aug 2022

Queer Bodies: Homoeroticism, Sensuality, And Erotica In Postmodern Fine Art Photography, Rosa Michel Pace

LSU Master's Theses

The queer body– describes the sum of assumptions and biases attributed to queer people, whereby a person’s own queer identity or expression is overshadowed by the generalizations, (mis)perceptions, and stereotypes that society imposes on that individual. Central to the scope of this thesis is the reality whereby the ostracization of queer people involves the association between the very body of the queer person with sexual acts deemed both deviant and immoral by a cis-heteronormative society. Society renders the queer body as pejoratively deviant simply on the basis of its existence alone, where any form of varied gender or sexual expression …


Offerings, Diana C. Patin Sep 2021

Offerings, Diana C. Patin

LSU Master's Theses

These photographs and writing are a set of offerings, collected as part of an intensive examination of myself and my contentious relationship with self-image. I first established which traits in my personality represent me best. I landed on my fatness, my queerness, my southernness, and my penchant for caring. Then I took a deep dive into each of those four themes with the objective of uncovering both the areas of exaltation and spaces of hurt within them. The images that result are both confrontational and gentle. It is my hope that the uncompromising honesty within these offerings communicates that while …


In-Between The Wind, Victoria L. Vontz Aug 2021

In-Between The Wind, Victoria L. Vontz

LSU Master's Theses

In-between the Wind is a compilation of poems, short stories, theories, photographs, and drawings that reveal my relationship and connection with nature. Through prose, I expose and question my place in the world, how I see it and how I am connected to it, while photographic images and drawings leave space for thoughtful and reflective meditation. The work draws upon memories, discusses theories of connection, and aims to record ephemeral moments that often seem to be too easily forgotten.


Recoding The Archive: Memory And Identity In The Photographic And Filmic Works Of Shirin Neshat, Shoja Azari, And Alia Ali, Olivia K. Johnson Nov 2020

Recoding The Archive: Memory And Identity In The Photographic And Filmic Works Of Shirin Neshat, Shoja Azari, And Alia Ali, Olivia K. Johnson

LSU Master's Theses

Shirin Neshat, Shoja Azari, and Alia Ali are artists of Middle Eastern descent living and working in the United States, mainly in photographic and filmic modes. Neshat and Azari were born in Iran and immigrated to the U.S. amid the 1979 Iranian Revolution, which drastically changed the political and cultural landscape of the country. Ali was born in Yemen but her father is specifically South Yemeni and her mother Yugoslavian, two countries that no longer exist. As artists experiencing exile and diaspora, with complicated relationships to their home countries, their identities are muddled by hybridity and the struggle between being …


Small Revelations, Christopher Burns Jun 2020

Small Revelations, Christopher Burns

LSU Master's Theses

Small Revelations is a photographic project that recontextualizes images of historic churches found in areas of the United States that have a colonial history. The images in this series subvert and critique the symbolic importance of these structures by interrupting the inherent power found in their architecture. They achieve this subversion through the careful use of color, composition and photographic imperfection. This project builds its argument with visual decisions inspired and validated by work within the art historical canon. Small Revelations is a thesis project produced as the final requirement of Louisiana State University’s Master of Fine Arts in Studio …


Hyear Come De Parade: The History Of The Black Mardi Gras Tradition In Baton Rouge, Kirsten L. Campbell Apr 2020

Hyear Come De Parade: The History Of The Black Mardi Gras Tradition In Baton Rouge, Kirsten L. Campbell

LSU Master's Theses

The aim of this thesis to emphasize the importance the role of photography in preserving and archiving cultural memories and histories as well as demonstrate the impact of digital archives. Using archival materials such as local newspapers and press photographs, this thesis offers, for the first time, the history of the African American Mardi Gras parading tradition in Baton Rouge between the years 1910 through 1941. This thesis, too, provides an art historical analysis of the visual material that exists of these early African American parades in Baton Rouge, and contextualizes the histories that shaped, influenced, and made these parades …


In-Between: The Spaces Of Modernity, Elisa Fabris Valenti Apr 2018

In-Between: The Spaces Of Modernity, Elisa Fabris Valenti

LSU Master's Theses

During the past three years as a graduate student, I have experienced loneliness. Having recently emigrated from Italy, I have often asked myself why I am experiencing such hard times adjusting to a different country. My thesis explores this question. Referring to Marc Augé’s idea of non-place, I have chosen a geographical and spatial starting point to approach my work. Italian cities are built around the central piazza where social, political, and economic life revolves. In my thesis, I depict American spaces that lack specific location and create solitude within the urban corridors. Private feelings, such as loneliness, are paradoxes …


Dislocation, Brian Randall Deppe Jan 2017

Dislocation, Brian Randall Deppe

LSU Master's Theses

This photographic project, Dislocation, seeks to document the current state and decline of Cortana Mall in Baton Rouge, Louisiana. The mall was built in 1976 during the height of shopping mall construction and was one of the largest shopping centers in the country with five anchor stores and 139 retail spaces. Now, just 48 stores and two anchor stores remain open. This high vacancy rate and deterioration of the mall is due to suburban flight, the building of new shopping centers in southern Baton Rouge, and changing consumer trends, which has led to malls closing across the country. My photographs …


This Is My Attempt To Hold On, Kimberly Reneé Jones Jan 2015

This Is My Attempt To Hold On, Kimberly Reneé Jones

LSU Master's Theses

I am an identical twin. The connection I share with my twin sister is intense and immediate. But now, we live over 800 miles apart. This Is My Attempt To Hold On serves as a visual metaphor for the longing for the undiluted rapport we have when we are together, and the frustrations of communicating with her through a digital device. I am constantly dissatisfied with my attempts to connect with her. I watch myself, my words, and my thoughts become diffused through the pixels. The work exists as composites of various mediums, creating a dialogue between photography, printmaking, sculpture, …


A Peculiar Paradigm Of Perpetual Parallax, Randi Marie Willett Jan 2015

A Peculiar Paradigm Of Perpetual Parallax, Randi Marie Willett

LSU Master's Theses

Reality estranges as an encumbrance, a cage that traps with its clipped wings, layered veils, and stiff blankets. This hold subsists as an immovable vessel potted but never earthbound—mounted in a strained compartment, like jars with tight lids, lacking: in air, in breath, in imaginary attributes. Finally, with a last breath, an emergence blooms upon that which contextualizes momentary “reality” or rather that which defines a metaphorical escape from… actuality. My singular endeavor is to escape. My momentary escape is found in the illusory. My illusion is a perception of reality and with this perception I find my singular endeavor... …


Graviora Manent: Heavier Things Remain, Andrea Laborde Barbier Jan 2014

Graviora Manent: Heavier Things Remain, Andrea Laborde Barbier

LSU Master's Theses

The photographic collection Graviora Manent addresses the complexities and deciphering of human relationships, intensified through the decisive acts of obscuring or revealing formal information. The pictures are made using an alternative French photographic method called mordançage, which physically alters the surface of the gelatin silver print using a combination of chemistry and water. The images frequently include recurring elements of my own dreams, as well as figures set in recognizably interior or exterior environments. Recurring themes in the series include what is public vs. what is private, voyeurism, familiarity, and the unknown.


A Meal Denied, Sarah Kolac Jan 2014

A Meal Denied, Sarah Kolac

LSU Master's Theses

The photographs in the series A Meal Denied offer a unique portrait into the lives of individuals currently serving as Texas Death Row inmates. In 2011, due to an extravagant meal request by an inmate, Senator John Whitmire sought to put an end to the last meal requests in Texas. Whitmire stated, "It is extremely inappropriate to give a person sentenced to death such a privilege." However, I disagree with Whitmire; every inmate on Death Row should not be denied one of the only choices they will perhaps ever have during their incarceration in prison due to one particular inmates' …


Art Tweets: A Content Analysis Of Social Media Activity Among Six Top Art Museums In The U.S.A., Patricia Ann Milford-Hoyt Jan 2014

Art Tweets: A Content Analysis Of Social Media Activity Among Six Top Art Museums In The U.S.A., Patricia Ann Milford-Hoyt

LSU Master's Theses

This study presents a content analysis of Twitter posts tagged with one of six institutions to establish uses and gratifications with this medium and the art museum industry. Due to industry norms, copyright law, museums traditionally do not permit photography and therefore may limit the advancement of their mission through misuse of the social media. This study establishes a baseline by seeking to understand how museums and individual account holders engage on Twitter within the art museum space as well as begin to unearth whether museums are misusing this media outlet and limiting their potential to educate the public while …


The Creation Of "Trash The Dress" : A Solo Play, Kristina Sutton Jan 2013

The Creation Of "Trash The Dress" : A Solo Play, Kristina Sutton

LSU Master's Theses

The thesis project called for the MFA candidate to create a one-person show of originality and entertainment between 25 minutes and 45 minutes in length. This thesis, submitted to the Graduate School of Louisiana State University as partial requirement for graduation with the Master of Fine Arts degree in Theatre, follows the creation of a solo performance piece by Kristina Sutton, called “Trash the Dress.” The thesis includes inspiration for creating this solo performance piece, initial correspondence between the MFA candidate and consultants, research material and a copy of the script, personal reflection on writing and rehearsal challenges, photos from …


Your Loss, Lauren Jean Hegge Jan 2013

Your Loss, Lauren Jean Hegge

LSU Master's Theses

Your Loss is an exhibition of drawings, photographs, intaglio prints, found objects and prose. Drawn from personal and anonymous archives, the works in the exhibition acknowledge various forms of breakdown, exploring individual reactions and attempts to rebuild from the fragments of loss. Inherent in the work are discussions of remembering and forgetting, finding and losing, building and destroying, growth and decay. This work is both recognition of the desire to hold on too tightly and an effort to learn to let go.


Photojournalism As Photonationalism, Jeremy Kreusch Jan 2012

Photojournalism As Photonationalism, Jeremy Kreusch

LSU Master's Theses

The public saw the wars in Iraq (2003 – 2012) and Afghanistan (2001 – present) through the lens of reverence and sentimentality toward the soldier. This was manifest not simply in the catchy “support our troops” rhetoric, but in the one-sided depiction of the experience of battle by the photojournalists who worked for the major news organizations in the Western world. From the emotionally bloated to the nationalistic, the photographs taken by “embedded” photojournalists, whether the result of heavy-handed censorship or merely political influence, presented a consistent image: the soldier as a selfless victim of his or her own heroism. …


The 'Anti-Photographic' Photography Of Pablo Picasso And Its Influence On The Development Now Known As Cubism, Dana Statton Jan 2012

The 'Anti-Photographic' Photography Of Pablo Picasso And Its Influence On The Development Now Known As Cubism, Dana Statton

LSU Master's Theses

By examining the relationship between photography and painting at the turn of the nineteenth century, it becomes clear that the two mediums have more in common than art historians acknowledge. The two share obvious formal qualities such as form, perspective, depth, and spatial relationships. These formal qualities make it easier to see the potential overlap between the two mediums, as Picasso did during the summer of 1909. Although Picasso is not well known for his photography, the large collection of photographic imagery found in his estate now makes it possible to firmly establish the place of photography within his oeuvre. …


From Here To There, Dana Statton Jan 2012

From Here To There, Dana Statton

LSU Master's Theses

The photographs in the series From Here to There are not a description of a place; instead, the images are about engaging in a particular type of looking. Elements of “here” and “time” are included in the work; by photographing a moment that will never exist again, transitory objects are imbued with importance. A tree branch drifts, a puddle evaporates, and light shifts, slowly, but immediately. In the midst of this change, my photographs represent specific moments. Integral to the work is the act of finding the photograph, as is the act of framing, taking, and making the photograph. Each …


North To South, Mercedes Jelinek Jan 2012

North To South, Mercedes Jelinek

LSU Master's Theses

North to South is a series of photographs that reflect ideas of home and community. The images and video components depict portraits of my neighbors taken over the last two years. The individuals I photographed were crucial to my process, for with their help and a simple homemade photo booth, I found a “home” here in the south.


Sexo Asimétrico: El Pensamiento No Dicotómico Del Cuerpo A Partir De La Sexualizacióon Del Otro (Sobre Algunas Fotos De María Zorzon Y Gabriela Liffschitz), Kristen Michelle Hubbard Jan 2011

Sexo Asimétrico: El Pensamiento No Dicotómico Del Cuerpo A Partir De La Sexualizacióon Del Otro (Sobre Algunas Fotos De María Zorzon Y Gabriela Liffschitz), Kristen Michelle Hubbard

LSU Master's Theses

Each body has certain cultural values attached to it regarding the way in which it should perform in public. The body is marked by dichotomous thinking (masculine/feminine, healthy/sick, sacred/degraded, artistic/pornographic, etc.) that dictates its presentation in visual culture. In Volatile Bodies: Toward a Corporeal Feminism, Elizabeth Grosz states the importance of non-dichotomous thinking for feminist and gender studies scholars and gives guidelines to deconstruct these hegemonic dualities. The purpose of this thesis is to show how the eroticization of the body of Other, in accordance with Grosz’s guidelines, can be useful in upsetting taken-for-granted social roles thus leading to non-dichotomous …


Of Reality: A Society Of Selves, Kelly C. Tate Jan 2011

Of Reality: A Society Of Selves, Kelly C. Tate

LSU Master's Theses

Of Reality: A Society of Selves is a series of photographs that challenge the viewer’s perception of reality. Through digital image manipulation, costumed, multiplicitous self-portraits merge with handcrafted miniature environments. With the goal of illustrating the complexity of existing within society, the resulting images examine the psychological process of perception as it relates to social interaction and identity.


Stereotype And Representation Of Near And Middle Eastern Peoples In La Bande Dessinee, Brandon Matthew Thomas Jan 2010

Stereotype And Representation Of Near And Middle Eastern Peoples In La Bande Dessinee, Brandon Matthew Thomas

LSU Master's Theses

Representation of social groups in the comics is serious. In 2006, a series of twelve cartoons published in a Danish newspaper sparked a controversy that precipitated the deaths of hundreds of people. The images depicted Mohammed and other images that supposedly mocked Islam. All across Europe, the Middle East, and North Africa protesters paraded through the streets, some calling for the death of the cartoonists. Trials in Europe over the publication of these cartoons resulted in several firings. Counter protests have also arisen. These protesters found grievance with the firings, claiming that the freedom of the press was being violated …


Recollections Of Paradise Lost, Japheth Alan Storlie Jan 2009

Recollections Of Paradise Lost, Japheth Alan Storlie

LSU Master's Theses

Recollections of Paradise Lost is both a memoir and a fictitious account. While the images in this series are based on actual people and events from my childhood, they are nonetheless implied narratives. Through the employment of universal symbols of childhood nostalgia such as tricycles, tire swings, toys, etc., these photographs are intended to implore the viewer to make connections with their own pasts. These narratives are meant to captivate and enchant and at the same time, disturb and haunt. Ultimately, the objective is for the audience to reconsider and re-experience the joys, fears, losses and traumas associated with childhood …


Everyday, Jill Tucker Moore Jan 2009

Everyday, Jill Tucker Moore

LSU Master's Theses

In our everyday lives we are bombarded with thousands, even millions, of images. Suffering information overload, we filter out the vast majority of these impressions – the person we pass on the street or sitting in the car next to us at a stop light. We only ‘see’ those people, places and things that ‘matter’, all else becomes ‘noise’; filtered into the background of consciousness – vaguely familiar, yet simultaneously foreign, creating a ‘manageable paradigm’ or construct of the world we inhabit. I take photographic portraits every day. Not of the ‘important’ in my life, but the nondescript, often overlooked …


A Shared Silence, Jessica Alice Mowers Jan 2009

A Shared Silence, Jessica Alice Mowers

LSU Master's Theses

I took a journey home to Western New York and turned the camera’s lens on both my family and myself. 

 This thesis is a story about my family and me. I photographed my family to confront the tragic car accident that took my brother’s life and my mom’s sanity. I also acknowledged the present state of my family with these photographs by exploring the root of many of my fears and anxieties that stem from the tense and stressful atmosphere within my home as a result of this car accident.


The Lower Ninth Ward, New Orleans: Vestiges Of A Neighborhood, Adam N. Hess Jan 2008

The Lower Ninth Ward, New Orleans: Vestiges Of A Neighborhood, Adam N. Hess

LSU Master's Theses

The Lower Ninth Ward, New Orleans: Vestiges of a Neighborhood is a photo-documentary of the remnants of one of America’s most unique and culturally distinct neighborhoods. Three years after Hurricane Katrina devastated this neighborhood, it lies in ruin, slowly returning to nature. All that remains of the community that once occupied the Lower Ninth are the dilapidated buildings, the crumbling homes, and the small possessions left behind. For the past three years I have explored the Lower Ninth Ward, discovering the remains of a community rich in tradition, family, and religion. Through the use of black and white photographs and …


Eve's Prisoners, Tara Rene Ratliff Jan 2008

Eve's Prisoners, Tara Rene Ratliff

LSU Master's Theses

All women are the children of Eve and the children of the earth. With the work of Eve’s Prisoners, my aim was to create imagery about the transient stages of womankind and the timeless relationship the feminine ideal has with nature. We are born innocent and able to see the truth of things, but eventually we all imprison ourselves in our bodies, in language, and in our own nature. My pictures want to reconcile the innocence and the pain and to say that by accepting aging and death as part of life, we free ourselves from our own prisons.


The Land - A New Topographic Study Of Home, Jacob Croft Botter Jan 2007

The Land - A New Topographic Study Of Home, Jacob Croft Botter

LSU Master's Theses

The photographs in my thesis sit between these two movements, leaning more towards the contemporary ideas that were generated by the New Topographic Movement. On one hand, they are similar to the traditional photographs of the landscape, in the way they depict a place of organic beauty. They present a panorama that serves as a poignant reminder of the natural world that demands our respect and appreciation for what it has to offer. At the same time, this cannon of imagery contains man, or a visual representation of man, and his efforts. My pictures are not an outsider's observation of …


Hallowed Halls: Abandoned Schools Of Louisiana, Lauren Q. Greathouse Jan 2007

Hallowed Halls: Abandoned Schools Of Louisiana, Lauren Q. Greathouse

LSU Master's Theses

"Hallowed Halls: Abandoned Schools of Louisiana" is an exploration of the remnants found in vacant educational institutions around the state. With the use of color and black and white images, I deal with my own memories of grade school by recreating the vibrancy and color I remember with the poignancy of those things and places that remain. These objects and spaces speak of an interaction with society and emit a history of the complex relationship between people, and the places and things that were once a part of their lives. The images are meant to suggest a contrast between what …


The Everywhere Chronicles, Jamie Brownell Baldridge Jan 2005

The Everywhere Chronicles, Jamie Brownell Baldridge

LSU Master's Theses

The Everywhere Chronicles is a body of work that has been perambulating through my mind since the halcyon days of childhood. It is not intended as any sort of catharsis, metaphorical or otherwise, nor is it any forum of self discovery, accidental or intentional. These Chronicles are quite simply a journey into imagination, an exercise in "what ifs?". They confront the theory that Columbus was actually on a munchies run to an Indian Takeaway in Ipswich and simply took a wrong turn at the Antilles, and that the Lost City of Atlantis is alive and well somewhere outside of Duluth …