Arts and Humanities Commons^™

Translational Placemaking: The Diasporic Archive, Alia Varawalla

Masters Theses

Globalization and mass migration has propelled a hybrid existence, as individuals that occupy multiple geographies we live in a constant state of translation. Our museums and cultural institutions are in opposition to this; static, preserved and de-contextualized. At the intersection of printmaking and architecture, this thesis proposes a living archive to document the collective migratory journey across sites, materials, and hybrid identities. A network of centers for knowledge sharing and production centered on India and its diaspora. As art practices and people migrate, cultural production evolves with its context, gaining new meaning as it changes hands generationally and globally.

A Parar Para Avanzar: To Stop/To Stand/To Strike To Advance, Christina N. Barrera

Theses and Dissertations

This paper presents the first fragments of a political framework outlining how I situate my work, which lives between “craft” and “art” models of making and between colonized and colonizing traditions. My writing proposes ways of making and being informed by practices, strategies, and organizing that work towards greater autonomy and liberation under these conditions.

Living Between The Lines: How Japanese Crafts Taught Frank Lloyd Wright, Adolf Loos, And Eileen Gray To See Modern Domestic Space, Regina Nabil Emmer

Art & Art History ETDs

Histories of European and U.S. modernism conventionally accept that Enlightenment rational thought set modern architecture’s terms and criteria in the late-nineteenth and early-twentieth centuries. Rationalism privileges visual and material properties; distinguishes between art, architecture, and craft; and identifies space with the structure that frames it. It normalized the view that buildings stand fixed, independent of our interaction with them, and perpetuates assumptions about what physically defines domestic space. Consequently, Japan’s significance for modern domestic space in Europe and the U.S. has been interpreted as structurally evident. Simultaneously, the architecture of European and U.S. modernists who did not think like rationalists …

Indisciplined Ceramic Outhouses And Blob-Like Glass Bunnies: Four Case Studies On Canadian Prairie Ceramics And Glass, Julia Krueger

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

The field of craft has been dominated by debates surrounding types of objects and material, how-tos, lists, and genealogies, and today there is an increasing turn towards craft theories which do not necessarily address an object. This study brings the object back into craft discourse. “Indisciplined Ceramic Outhouses and Blob-like Glass Bunnies: Four Case Studies on Canadian Prairie Ceramics and Glass” is an object-inspired study of the work and craft-related practices of Victor Cicansky (Saskatchewan), Ione Thorkelsson (Manitoba), Marty Kaufman (Alberta), Altaglass (Alberta), and Mireille Perron (Alberta).

Part one of this dissertation focuses on Cicansky and part two focuses on …

Contemporary Handicraft, Textile Art, And Feminist Social Critique, Kaitlynn Blow

Honors Theses

My thesis looks at the work of female contemporary artists who use what has historically been considered “women’s craft” such as embroidery, knitting, stitching and other various textile arts. Since the Women’s Art Movement of the 1970s, women have used these creative outlets to express discontent and injustice in their lives revolving around gender and identity. In my research, three main themes emerged as addressed in each chapter. The first theme addresses the topic of domesticity and memory including unseen female labor, such as domestic chores and motherhood, and how fabric holds memories. Chapter two covers gender politics- specifically the …

Spanning, Mary Katherine Carder-Thompson

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

This dossier consists of three chapters. Chapter 1 is a comprehensive artist statement describing my system for spirit communication that leverages the latent power of wool processing tools. This system borrows strategies from varied sources including living history, paraconceptualism, and bricolage. Chapter 2 visually documents my studio practice over the two years of my MFA candidacy at Western University. Chapter 3 is a case study of Luanne Martineau’s 2009 drawing, Who are they you salute, and that one after another salute you. This case study addresses Martineau’s engagement with Modernism’s legacy and discusses how her work builds an equitable …

Kiddush Levana, The Moon Is Your Handheld Mirror, Noa Ginzburg

Theses and Dissertations

Noa Ginzburg is weaving cast-off and hand-made objects, lights, reflections, spells, drawings, and an abundance of knots into site-responsive installations. In her thesis, Ginzburg addresses Hieronymus Bosch’s paintings, the synergy of assemblages, repurposing of materials in the era of Anthropocene, and how notions of solidarity and indeterminacy influence her work.

Lifetime, Emily E. Kuchenbecker

Theses and Dissertations

Time is my bully. Time marks the start of something, as well as the end. We are all carrying out the inexorable passing of time as it relates to our impending mortalities.

I do not fear death.

The awareness of my body’s impermanence employs me to feel that much more connected to the vessel containing that of which I am.

But what am I? Am I my body- or is it much deeper?

Through the work executed during my graduate research, I have attempted to quantify my existence through the archiving my time and body. This document ushers you through …

Through My Window, Haiyin Liang

Theses and Dissertations

I convey my thoughts through art jewelry; making jewelry is my language of communication and commemoration. Inspired by historical Chinese art and contemporary jewelry, my practice pays attention to bring classical Chinese aesthetics of hazy poetic and ideal arrangement into the contemporary jewelry field. The attention to detail refers to the quiet contemplation and emotional experiences encouraged by each of my works. Through my research, I use metalsmithing language to communicate with non-precious materials finding my own way of expression and meditation. Meanwhile, I build environments that display jewelry off the body in order to construct a picturesque landscape. The …