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Instrument Development For Determining High School Students’ Epistemological And Ontological Beliefs Regarding Photography, Earl Stanford Maeser Jr.

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Fall 2023 to Present

Research in educational psychology has shown that students' beliefs about knowledge—known as personal epistemology—significantly impact their academic success. However, accurately measuring these beliefs has proven to be challenging due to the lack of reliable and valid tools. This study addresses this gap by developing and testing two tools aimed at assessing high school students' beliefs about knowledge and reality in the context of photography: the Photographic Knowledge Questionnaire (PKQ) and the Photographic Reality Questionnaire (PRQ).

Photography, with its strong ties to reality and representation, provides a unique way to explore personal beliefs about the nature of reality and how knowledge …

Winter Solstice, Jingwen Cao

Masters Theses

For a long time, I have been thinking about what contemporary photography is, what its position is, and what the relationship is between artists and audiences. At the same time, I was developing my concepts and photographic directions and trying to make my work and my perspective on photography relevant. Winter Solstice includes a series of essays that locate my thinking and my work. Its title references the longest night of the year.

The position of photography has changed significantly over the past few decades. The way people read photos is also changing. Perhaps because of reverence for art and …

Modern Times, Will Beattie

Masters Theses

At the intersection of glass, photography and sound lies issues of perspective, framing, and information. These factors as well as the conceptual space between object and image offer an opportunity to explore the way we register narrative through contradicting signifiers. Glass historically has been used as an instrument to reveal spaces, moments, and phenomena previously imperceptible to the human eye. This rendering of previously unseen spaces through language, technology or vision, may work to reorient the viewers’ perspective and allow for a new understanding of the world. The power of disruption as a potential catalyst is central to my studio …

America, Dreaming., Sarah Meftah

Masters Theses

There is a version

of America

that exists

only in dreams,

a kind of folklore,

shrouded in images,

technicolor interiors,

wrapped in plastic,

ghosts of recent past

to haunt and guide;

a constant reminder.

Wishful thinking

a constructed imaginary,

one I can hold in my hand.

Popular culture and spectacle, America and the domestic ideal, capitalism and the collective unconscious of a national identity. As an artist, I am interested in the myriad images that manifest for a viewer when they think of the spectacle of American pop culture, its domestic archetypes, and the material worship it revolves around. My …

Intangible Shells, Elena Bulet

Masters Theses

The following essay mimics the constant disruption of a fragmented memory. It reflects on intergenerational gendered family dynamics since the civil war and dictatorship-era Spain and how memory articulates narratives of belonging within the matrilineal lineage. A process of excavation departs from personal memories, familial archives, contemporary interviews, theoretical readings, photographic reenactments, and observations of traces in the landscape of Almayate’s town. The author attempts to retrace her roots, as well as her family history, acknowledging the impossibility of making personal histories tangible.

Rhythm Of Space, Brian Carrillo

Masters Theses

This project innovates architectural representation by exploring the rhythm and flow of spaces, focusing on staircases in the Bayard Ewing Building, the RISD Museum courtyard, the Waterman Building, and Woods-Gerry. It captures the body’s dynamic sequence in these spaces, using drawings or animations to challenge traditional techniques. Emphasizing kinesthetic perception, it offers a fresh perspective on architectural experience. Ultimately, this work enriches our understanding of how architectural elements shape movement and perception, enhancing architectural representation and experience.

The Day The Door Flew Open, Clara Delgado

Masters Theses

A journey is a chance to better oneself, to go and come back anew. This kind of pilgrimage does not only happen in the spectacular realm of far-off travels. Often it happens where the soles of one’s feet comprehend the curvature of the land. Then, without forewarning, time opens a sliding door that appears on the recognized ground. Stepping in, the world is realized in a new way.

The writings that strike my tongue with ravishing bittersweet flavors are fictional narratives, with voyages that sail through day and night, disguised as lovely prose while critically probing the world. This written …

[W]Hole: Journey To Fullness, Joni P. Gordon

MFA in Visual Art

My work raises critical questions about Black history, race, gender, beauty, and privilege. My practice also highlights the intersectionality of colorism and racism. I use materials such as cardboard rectangles with handwritten words, brown paper, doors defaced by scratches, fire, printed images, newspaper, and projected photographs to ask and answer those questions. I also use Work and Travel documents, broom and brush bristle, mop fiber, towels, and audio recordings of oral histories to exhibit invisible scars wrought by racist actions as physical and material manifestations.

My practice began after experiencing racial discrimination for the first time on a US work …

Skin To Skin: A Mixed-Media Exploration Of The Inheritance Of Identity, Angeline Morgan

Honors Theses

Skin to Skin is a mixed-media project that investigates the inheritance of identity through fine art and anthropological approaches. With a focus on womanhood, maganda (beauty), and Filipino-American culture, Skin to Skin reflects my deconstruction of cultural beauty practices. Growing up, proximity to lightness and darkness was a heavily emphasized metric. I witnessed family members experiment with light, water, and skin-lightening products on their skin. Now, I use alternative process photography to mirror their aesthetic experimentation.

To visually connect darkroom and beauty rituals, I created a series of unique, experimental prints where I treat paper surfaces as skin. I produced …

The Routes, Wei-Ta Chen

Theses and Dissertations

The Routes is a 30-minute documentary that explores the filmmaker's reflection on the ties to family and homeland, as well as the nature of non-fiction filmmaking itself, all the while portraying in parallel the story of immigrant artist Hung-Ju as he delicately balances creative challenges with nostalgia.

Picturing Consumer Culture, Cultural Hybridity, And Womanhood: Farah Al Qasimi’S Photographs From 2012 To 2020, Minji Lee

Theses and Dissertations

This thesis examines Farah Al Qasimi’s 2012-2020 color photographs, arguing that this work presents a distinctive and salient critique of domesticity, material culture, and womanhood in the UAE. Through her lens as a woman and a culturally hybrid subject, Al Qasimi explores the tensions of modernization, globalization, consumerism, and gender.

Generations, Jayla Watkins

Student Projects

Understanding your family can be the starting point of understanding your personal identity. Coming of age, you begin to view your family members as individuals as opposed to their titles of “Mother” or “Grandmother” names that once seemed to elude that she possessed some sort of supernatural power. As Jayla Watkins looks across 3 generations of her family, she sees different versions of the same person affected by life experiences, environments, and choices. Some oddly similar and some worlds apart. Understanding the generations of woman before her helps inform the woman she is becoming.

With influences such as Deana Lawson …

False Eidetic, Zach Sockol

Student Projects

Do memories still exist if they are forgotten?

Memories define the soul. They are created to outlast the experience, but what is left behind? A moment in time captured with the lens of the mind, it is intangible. These memories shape our worldview, our thoughts, our reality. It is the culmination of these experiences that makes us who we are, yet through reminiscence, those moments are viewed so clearly in your mind that to you it is the truth, only to hear someone else remember it completely differently. Does this mean our memories aren’t real? Will we ever be able …

Reassembled And Reimagined: A Study Of Princess Alexandra's Photocollage Album, Haley Steines

Theses and Dissertations

In the nineteenth century, album-making became a popular medium for Victorian women to experiment with due to its association with the domestic sphere and a growing art market aimed towards women. Once photography became an accessible and affordable medium, women began to include cartes-de-visite in their album pages resulting in a new form of album-making: the photocollage album. Princess Alexandra’s (1844-1925) photocollage album created in 1866 1869 contains several of the common themes and techniques seen amongst photocollage album creators. However, her status as the Princess of Wales and the preservation of photographs by the Royal Collection Trust allows for …

Reclamation: The Towns Of The Virginia Coalfields, Craig Owens

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The photographer discusses his work in Reclamation: The Towns of the Virginia Coalfields, a Master of Fine Arts thesis exhibit held at the Tipton Gallery from February 12th through February 23, 2024. The exhibition focuses on coal towns located in the southwestern part of Virginia. The exhibition consists of 20 framed, archival inkjet prints. Each framed work is 36” x 24” and is representative of the artist’s exploration of the towns. A catalog of the exhibit is included at the end of this thesis.

Owens examines formal and conceptual artistic influences, both historical and contemporary. Historic and contemporary photographic …

Only That’S Not Enough, Joe Cuccio

Theses

My emotions and feelings towards life have always been a bit all over the place. At one moment I feel the world is full of joy and serenity, and in the next moment, I feel it is a string of disorderly events with no rhyme or reason. As my internal feelings turn, I continue to remain engaged with an image-making practice. My camera allows me to venture into the world and follow my heart as it guides my eyes to respond to what is around and inside my head. Making images became an extension of my presence in the most …

Enola, Justin Gibson

Theses

Enola, is a photographic collection of visual fragments without a beginning or end. These moments reflect on my inner psychological landscape, translated from pieces of stories, dreams, recollections. My project, inspired heavily by the town that I once called home, Enola, Pennsylvania, acts as a cultural origin point for my photographs. This work highlights aspects of the uncanny, the quiet, and the unfamiliar tendencies of life. These formulations usually manifest as dreamlike scenes. My work weaves these disconnected pieces into a cohesive reflection.

Gen Z’S Perceptions And Use Patterns Of Smartphones In Nature-Based Recreation, Miles A. Glendening

All NMU Master's Theses

Generation Z (Gen Z), individuals born between 1997 and 2012, are often defined by their relationship to technology, specifically smartphones. Gen Z is defined as the first digital natives, those who grew up with and had early access to smartphones. As Gen Z comes into adulthood, they represent the largest demographic of those who participate in nature-based recreation (NBR), and are the future of NBR participation. Purpose: The purpose of this study was to investigate how prevalent smartphone use is amongst Gen Z individuals while participating in NBR and how smartphone use potentially enhances or diminishes ones’ NBR experience. This …

If The Last Petals Fall, Soomin Kim

Theses

During the Spring of 2023, I visited my mother in Los Angeles. I unpacked my belongings and sat down for a light snack with her. Watching her cut fruits, I noticed for the first time that her face had aged significantly. If The Last Petals Fall is a photographic series that delves into the concept of memory. With the handful amount of what’s left of my family archives, I have accepted the fact that I can no longer contribute to my past but rebuild the missing in-between moments. These photos represent my childhood, adulthood, and everything in between. Through this …

Late To The Party, Brandon Forrest Frederick

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Late to the Party is a multi-channel installation that addresses the feelings of desire and alienation that result from the unrestrained image and object production of contemporary life. In this state of total consumption, our personal anxieties are magnified, resulting in a deflated experience where it feels difficult to know yourself as an individual; where the performance of yourself, your peers, and the world becomes an obsessive experience. This installation asks how one can persist in a time defined by its flattening of the human experience.

Double Exposed Perspectives, Michael J. Leeson

Student Projects

Humans have always stumbled through time, whether each person lived or not is another question. Connecting, experiencing, and feeling dissolve existence into living. Inspired by artists Richard Mosse and Cara Romero who use alternative methods to present perspectives, Michael Leeson uses 35mm film in collaboration with friends from around the United States to do the same.

Leeson ships a variety of black and white film types and a film camera if they do not have one to his collaborators (some who have never shot film before) giving them a wide direction of “shoot your everyday life and vulnerability”. Leeson refuses …

Makeher, Maeve R. Wallace

Student Projects

Makeher is a multi-media work that grapples with the existential dilemma of creation within the context of our increasingly unreliable world. Anchored by a concern for the implications of childbirth, my art studies themes of life's genesis and the world we leave behind.

My subject matter, an amalgamation of mirrors, planets, silver, body parts, hair, and tights, are tools with which I explore these themes. Using silver fabric, I abstract the human form. By integrating disassembled body parts with mirrors, I reflect on the fragmented and multifaceted nature of the human existence. This process is not just about the creation …

M’Ma, Charlotte Rose Eshelman

Theses

As I wrestle with myself, I wrestle with my mother. Both my mother and I survived domestic abuse as children, my mother again as an adult. Our bodies carry our trauma, her body carried mine, and someday, my body will carry my children. M’ma contemplates what we do with what we’re given, how trauma is inherited and passed down to the next generation through the body, and the complex intimacy of the mother-child relationship. I express and project my questions about my future children, my relationship with and understanding of my mother, and of myself in anticipation of being a …

Preemptive Mourning, Rachel Warren

Art and Design Theses

Preemptive Mourning uses temporal, analog photographic practices to confront viewers with questions surrounding cultural funerary practices and the discomforts of death. The photograph, as a memory object, is simultaneously a reminder of the lived experience and a representation of what is no longer. I use the cemetery as my subject, a physical landscape that acts as an archive itself. The space exists, long after the material body decomposes, serving as a placeholder for a thing no longer there. Performance at the cemetery site is the crux, each subsequent work building upon each other to invite contemplation on the transformative power …

Atoms And Leaves, Patty Tomanovich

Theses

Atoms and Leaves is a photographic project presented as windows into a utopia. The glass images display a potential time and place where the landscape, photography, and transness intertwine and grow from each other. Photography historically harms the landscape- requiring precious metals, releasing pollution into the atmosphere, and creating hazardous water waste. The traditional photographic canon erases the connection between queerness and ecology. Atoms and Leaves rethreads these connections, creating a world where photography collaborates with the landscape and takes on a transgender perspective by reshaping given material. The photographic printing process developed in this project was inspired by the …

With Love & Rage: A Self Portrait Of Borderline Personality Disorder, Sarah Eckstine

Theses and Dissertations

With Love & Rage: A Self Portrait of Borderline Personality Disorder analyses how I use the act of taking self portraits to materialize emotions through photographic means. When I experience intense emotions symptomatic of borderline personality disorder, positive or negative, their onset is routinely sudden and overwhelming; what follows is an impulsive desire to photograph myself to archive the present before the emotions shift or return to stable levels.The Rage images document the emotional aftermath of a sexual assault and rape; anger and depression, by using a red-scale film to emphasize both confrontational and dissociated body language. The Love images …

"This Other Way": Photography At Black Mountain College, Kyle Canter

Theses and Dissertations

Relying on the photographic collections of the Western Regional Archives in Asheville, NC, as well as oral histories, personal correspondence, course notes, official college records, and other archival material, this thesis examines the history and pedagogy of photography at Black Mountain College.

"How Is Photography?": Robert Heinecken's Photographic Concept At The University Of California, Los Angeles, 1960–1991, Noa Wesley

Theses and Dissertations

This thesis examines the photography program Robert Heinecken established at UCLA, highlighting his interest in teaching photography as an idea rather than a technologically inflected medium. This pedagogical model provides a lens through which I trace the work of three of his students: Maria Nordman, John Divola, and Uta Barth.

He Mauka Teitei, Ko Aoraki, The Loftiest Of Mountains: The Names Of Aotearoa’S Highest Peak And Beyond, Joseph B. Lancia

Honors Projects

My thesis discusses the cultural, political, and social dynamics of mountains with separate Indigenous and Western names and identities. Centering on Aoraki/Mount Cook—the highest peak in Aotearoa New Zealand—I integrate personal experiences as ethnographic data through narratives, mainly of my time hiking while studying abroad in New Zealand and during the two recent summers I spent exploring Rocky Mountain National Park in Colorado. Through its name, Aoraki/Mt. Cook maintains Indigenous Māori and Western perspectives: Aoraki being a Māori atua (god) and Captain James Cook being a significant colonial figure in the Pacific. The slash upholds both identities while ensuring that …

How To Forget, Jesse D. Hoyle

Theses and Dissertations

How To Forget was born from a need to give tangible form to the psychic residue left behind by a life lived. Through the use of silk-screening of red clay mud onto ink-jet photographs, archival textiles, and site-specific installations, I attempt to tie and/or divorce myself from my own and my family's extended history and examine the function of memory within the dynamics of the archive. How To Forget takes a non-linear, non-chronological approach to this examination, compressing decades of time and space through the manipulation of the archive and my own self-portraiture, designed specifically to deny myself from its …