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Frontier: Land, Architecture, And Abstraction, Jacob Boatman
Frontier: Land, Architecture, And Abstraction, Jacob Boatman
Masters Theses
The abstraction of land is a colonial process by which physical land is transformed into a conceptual or symbolic entity. This transformation occurs through various economic, architectural, and cultural practices that imbue land with abstract values, meanings, and functions beyond its physicality. This includes the division of land into parcels for economic transactions, the design and construction of built environments that shape human interactions with the land, and the cultural narratives and representations that ascribe significance to particular landscapes. Through abstraction, colonial powers devalue indigenous perspectives and relationships to the land, reducing them to mere obstacles in the path of …
“After-Ozymandias”: The Colonization Of Symbols And The American Monument, H. R. Membreno-Canales
“After-Ozymandias”: The Colonization Of Symbols And The American Monument, H. R. Membreno-Canales
Theses and Dissertations
After-Ozymandias examines the visual rhetoric of American patriotism through its many symbols, including flags and monuments. My thesis project consists of photographs of empty plinths, objects, products and archival materials. Countless relics remain today memorializing leaders and empires that inevitably declined, from antiquity to modern times. Looking back at distant history feels like a luxury, though: the question for our time in America is whether we have the strength of mind as a society to scrutinize our history, warts and all.