Arts and Humanities Commons^™

A Critical Phenomenological Inquiry Into Disabled Embodiment And Identity, Heather Twele

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

This thesis uses critical phenomenology to investigate disabled embodiment and identity. I argue that (in)accessible subjective accounts of disability experience reveal disability to be a unique form of ever-changing embodiment: disability is the lived experience of a critical phenomenology. I turn to eclectic art, film, and poetry case studies involving a medical, surgical gaze to explore how ableist, sexist, and racist systems structure daily experience, forcing disabled people who “misfit” to analyze and confront systems of oppression, exclusion, and stigmatization. Disability experience challenges and resists ableist binaries of ability/disability, well/unwell, subject/object, mind/body, and inside/outside. The interdependence of these fluid, intertwining …

Confined By Darkness, Alyssa C. Sweeney

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

In addition to my Master of Fine Arts thesis exhibition, this dossier is arranged with an extended artist statement, documentation of a photographic series, a case study on artist Brian Ulrich, and a curriculum vitae. These portions of the thesis exhibit the themes and pursuit that inform my studio practice in photography. The comprehensive artist statement describes the attachments and personal background that informs my overall approach. The second chapter consists of a series of images titled, Confined by Darkness, which is an archive of significant spaces documented at night that evoke nostalgia or are prominent in my everyday …

Sweeping The Forest Floor Of Frequencies, Maria A. Kouznetsova

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

sweeping the forest floor of frequencies is a Master of Fine Art thesis project comprised of the dossier and the exhibition presented at the Artlab Gallery July 27 - August 11, 2023. My writing and multidisciplinary work foreground sonic, visual, and imperceptible signals as search modes for grounding and interconnectedness. The Comprehensive Artist Statement is the first chapter of the dossier and focuses on drawing, listening, and exploring forms of language as three dominant modes of my practice that reflect my fragmented life between three countries. In its form, the writing embraces fragmentation and iterative growth through refragmentation, drawing on …

Creative Common Worlding With Research Creation In Early Childhood Education, Sarah M. Hennessy

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

Creative Common worlding with research-creation in early childhood education engages with provocations that disrupt dominant understandings of children and their relations with more-than-human and human others. Reconceptualizing alternatives through art, this dissertation contemplates the potent possibilities beyond human stewardship, underscores the influence of an uncommoning lens, and emphasizes the difficulties with humancentric notions of research. If, by disrupting how we understand ourselves and our role in place, we modify our actions and change our habits, then perhaps we can live differently and contribute differently to the planet. Through a common worlds framework together with research-creation, this dissertation considers climate education …

Credulous Escapism, Brianne C. Casey

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

My Master of Fine Arts (MFA), explores the world of toys. I do so following the Thesis Dossier Stream, which is paired with a Thesis Exhibition Credulous Escapism (2022). My program of research reflects on the psychological impact of toys on myself and individuals. I have sought to create a series of works that express childhood wonderment and awe through paintings and installation works. The paintings depict apocalyptic landscapes in which toys explore an alternate universe which allude to a foreboding entity: the reality of adulthood. To contextualize my work, I examine the works of Marcel Duchamp, Diana Thorneycroft, Melanie …

The Other Neighbour Of El Otro Lado, Anahi Gonzalez Teran

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

This written thesis is in support of a Master’s of Fine Arts degree at Western University. The thesis dossier explores themes of Mexican migration in Canada engaging with ideas of human labour and various indexes of Mexican culture, trade, and economic exchange. The thesis also consists of documentation of public exhibitions and other various creative production components including videos, photography and multi-media installations. This thesis is separated into three major sections. The first is an extended artist statement which outlines my artistic research and my creative process as an artist. The second is a portfolio of photographic documentation of artworks …

Marvelous Monsters, Thomas Bourque

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

This Master of Fine Arts (MFA) Thesis Dossier, together with the MFA Thesis Exhibition Marvelous Monsters (2021), presents: a Comprehensive Artist Statement; Practice Documentation; a Case Study on Canadian artist David Altmejd; a Bibliography; and my curriculum vitae. The Practice Documentation section of this dossier highlights key pieces of my creative explorations over my time in the Visual Arts Department at Western University as well as photographic documentation of Marvelous Monsters. Taken as a whole, this MFA Thesis Dossier explores and situates immersive digital installation studio practice with research into beauty, abjection, monstrosity, hybridity, Surrealism, and speculative worlding as guided …

Fleet: Nuances Of Time And Ephemera, Rebecca Sutherland

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

The following MFA thesis is an investigation into tendencies emphasizing permanency in both art, and to a lesser extent, daily living. By exploring ideas surrounding temporality, the ephemeral, and permanency in the studio and the gallery by working creatively with organic material and allowing it to decay naturally, I foreground ideas surrounding “life and death,” and the way they play out in art practices.

The thesis has been separated into three main chapters, the first one being an Extended Artist Statement where I elaborate on the research interests, artistic influences and material dedication that informed my project. Practice documentation is …

On Ground, Matthew Brown

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

In supplement to my Masters of Fine Arts thesis exhibition, this dossier includes an extended artist statement, a transcribed interview with Nanaimo based abstract painter, Jonathan Forrest, and documentation of artwork produced during my studio research. The extended artist statement engages with loss, transition and incidence as these themes pertain to my art making process and its intersection with a personal tragedy that occurred part-way through my graduate studies. The statement is written in a retrospective style that acknowledges my own struggle towards an acceptance of loss and examines the evolution of my paintings during this period.

Pharmakon: From Body To Being, Jérôme Y. C. Conquy

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

This thesis dossier is separated into the following distinct sections: an extended artist statement; a portfolio documenting artworks made during my MFA candidacy and my exhibit Pharmakon: Acts, Traces, and Maps; and a case study of artist Tony Oursler, whose video and multimedia installations explore the psychological and social relationships between individuals and technologies. Together, they present my exploration of the body’s ‘power of acting,’ or potentia agendi, in relation to the modificatory capacity of technology, or affectus, on the human body. In particular, I investigate the body’s habits, or capacity for habit-building, what Bourdieu calls habitus, and the interconnection …

Cyber Souls And Second Selves, Yas Nikpour Khoshgrudi

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

This project explores the relationship between the real self and digital identity (mostly in the form of avatars in life simulation video games) and how these two states of being could possibly merge and act as one. This dossier consists of three chapters. The first chapter is an extended artist statement and a summary of influences in my work. There I explore the tangible relationship between player and avatar and how digital experiences affect our psyches in various contexts where this relationship is developed and maintained. The second chapter is an interview with Mohawk multimedia artist, Skawennati, who discusses how …

Symphony Of Lights: An Exploration Of The Stained Glass Windows In St. John The Evangelist Anglican Church, London, Ontario. February 9-18, 2021. Artlab Gallery, C. Cody Barteet, Iraboty Kazi, Anahi Gonzalez Teran

Visual Arts eBook Collection

This catalogue developed out of the exhibition, Symphony of Lights: An Exploration of Stained Glass Windows in St. John the Evangelist Anglican Church, London, ON, hosted at the Artlab Gallery on the campus of The University of Western Ontario from February 8-19, 2021. The exhibition focused on the visual and aural effects of the art of St. John’s. In the exhibition, we attempted to reimagine the grandeur of St. John’s artistic features by acknowledging their religious and historical settings, but more importantly, highlighting their artistic merit through a multisensorial experience that furthers those Londoners have enjoyed for over 130 years.

The Hell Of A Boiling Red, George Kubresli

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

As a refugee from the ongoing Syrian war, the tragedy of that war is my subject. This thesis addresses the tragedy of the war, and specifically the impact on the Syrian people. Alongside an analysis of my paintings and my artistic method, the calamity that Syrians experience is discussed, while I also attempt to explore the depths of the human soul to express the enormous traumas that are suffered in various encounters with war. This analysis and its manifestations is two sided: the role of facial expressions reflecting the inner turmoil of the individual, and the role of nature in …

Still, Unfolding, Ramolen Mencero Laruan

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

Together with my Master of Fine Art thesis exhibition, still, unfolding, at Zalucky Contemporary (Toronto, Ontario), this dossier constitutes the following accompanying components: a comprehensive artist statement, documented artwork, an interview with artist Erika DeFreitas, and a curriculum vitae. These components contextualize my subject-position, and outline theoretical research, motivations, and reflections that drive my work. I expand on the diasporic experience, politics of knowledge, and the autobiographical genre as they are linked methodologies in the retrieval of immigrant histories. The fusion of autobiography and fiction becomes a hopeful approach in challenging forgotten or omitted history and confronts the expectations …

Embodiment Of Creative Thought And Visual Logic In Bookmaking: An Example Of Intermediality In Word-Picture Adaptation, Diana Bychkova

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

This interdisciplinary study discusses word-picture translation for book illustrations and brings together visual art, book/illustration history, the materiality of the book, literature, and library science. The focus is on communication between the creator, the work of literary and visual art, and the receiver. Theories that observe verbal-visual relations appear typically disconnected from the practical aspects of bookmaking and publishing. In bridging practice and theory, I have developed my own method of word-picture interpretation that can be applied to any adult fiction text.

The thesis discusses the outside and the inside of illustration-making, presents the methodology and theoretical framework, explores such …

Experiential Learning: Sasah Final Report, Elora Sinnott

SASAH 4th Year Capstone and Other Projects: Publications

Elora Sinnott revisits both her experiential-learning opportunities, one as a research assistant at Western and the other with Art 4 All Kids in London, ON. In describing her opportunities and the results, Elora focuses on the skills she developed, the impact the opportunities had on her career path, and the importance of instilling a love of the arts in children.

Experiential Learning, Elora Sinnott

SASAH 4th Year Capstone and Other Projects: Presentations

In her presentation, Elora Sinnott revisits both her experiential-learning opportunities, one as a research assistant at Western and the other with Art 4 All Kids in London, ON. In describing her opportunities and the results, Elora focuses on the skills she developed, the impact the opportunities had on her career path, and the importance of instilling a love of the arts in children.

Report On Experiential Learning: Stratford Festival Internship And Private Art Collection Management, Natalie Scola

SASAH 4th Year Capstone and Other Projects: Publications

In her report, Natalie Scola discusses her two experiential-learning opportunities: her internship in the Stratford Festival archives cataloguing costumes and her work cataloguing and preserving a private art collection.

The Simultaneous Book: Women's Writing In Contemporary Art, Maryse Lariviere

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

Novels written by women authors who don’t adhere to the classification “visual artist” are nonetheless gaining momentum in today's contemporary art world. Yet works by authors such as Chris Kraus or Catherine Millet are often not recognized as artist’s novels because their authors are not or/and do not consider themselves to be visual artists. I contend that we can usefully situate their work within the genre of the artist’s novel by addressing how they invent artistic postures and artistic alter-egos within the autofictional worlds of their texts. My dissertation The Simultaneous Book proposes to open up the definition of the …

Collaborative Listening And Cultural Difference In Contemporary Art, Santiago Ulises Unda Lara

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

The research represented in this thesis has a relationship with my sustained interest in the subject of cultural difference that typified my earlier artistic practice. During my Ph.D. studies in Art and Visual Culture at Western University, I have advanced new perspectives on this problematic by elaborating on the potentialities of listening in dialogic and collaborative artistic practice. It comprises the discussion about the projects and activities developed within my doctoral studies, according to two main and related purposes. The first is the examination of hegemonic practices of production of meaning regarding cultural difference with a backdrop of the social, …

Affective And Sensuous Critique In The Undergraduate Art Classroom, Claire Bartleman

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

Drawing on the ways that art history, art theory, and art criticism have used affect theory, I ask how an affective approach can align the undergraduate classroom art critique with the historical definition of aesthetics, or aesthesis, and create a space for sense and feeling. The first chapter reviews literature in the field and demonstrates the perceived benefits and drawbacks of current critique models. In the second chapter, I consider how affect has the potential to disrupt traditional approaches to critique in order to assist in rethinking stated goals, disrupt power dynamics in the classroom, and generate transformative knowledge. In …

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 …

Philosophical Archeology In Theoretical And Artistic Practice, Ido Govrin

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

The aim of this thesis is to examine philosophical archeology and the feasibility of knowledge that derives from researching it simultaneously through theoretical and artistic practice.

Philosophical archeology essentially embodies one’s relation to history and historiographic research—a research methodology at the core of which lies a “historical a priori”, that which a priori conditions the historical development of a phenomenon. However, this research conceives of philosophical archeology more broadly, as a multifaceted term that traverses the discourse of the humanities at large.

By pursuing this doctoral research, my original contribution to knowledge is twofold: (1) I historicize philosophical archeology—a …

1981: One Or Several Aesthetics?, Jacob Norris

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

Gilles Deleuze’s monograph on Francis Bacon, The Logic of Sensation (1981), proposes a theory of aesthetic experience that prioritizes the material depths of sensation over stable, identifiable forms. Deleuze’s key references in The Logic of Sensation to playwright Antonin Artaud arouse the suspicion that Artaud’s schizophrenic experience of language, wherein words are reduced to phonetic ramblings, illuminates how Deleuze interprets this chaos of sensation in Bacon’s art. My work therefore calls back to The Logic of Sense (1969) and the first section of his book on Masochism (1967) to explore the waves of consistency between Deleuze’s understanding of language and …

Skim, Joy Wong

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

This thesis dossier provides the theoretical structure to my art production, and is presented alongside my thesis exhibition skim at McIntosh Gallery. This document is comprised of three parts: a comprehensive artist statement outlining the methodology and theory to my work, a case study of painter Cecily Brown, and photographic documentation of my studio practice. These components illustrate the research and material engagement about skin, corporeality, the abject, the grotesque, the formless, and purity.

The English Landscapes In The Seventeenth Century, Helen Parkinson

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

Relatively few critical studies have been written concerning the English landscape genre in the seventeenth century, not due to a lack of production or interest in the genre, but rather as a result of an anachronistic definition that is the product of eighteenth century artistic discourse. In contrast, I explore landscape as it was defined in contemporaneous seventeenth-century works and literature. Rather than a singular definition, I propose that the genre in the seventeenth century was marked by multiple iterations, each of which corresponded to shifting perceptions concerning the role of land in the culture, economy and politics of England. …

Supernova: Performing Race, Hybridity And Expanding The Geographical Imagination, Raheleh Saneie

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

This thesis attempts to explore the many socio-political, temporal and spatial factors that contribute to the formation of cultural identity. Through my video work, SuperNova, I examine how race is performed and the discursive structures that contribute to the process of racialization. The core question that is central to this thesis is how race is performed and the potential benefits and drawbacks of this performance. In chapter one, I explore how whiteness is performed and how racial hierarchies are maintained through performance. I critique the Aryan race discourse that is a part pf Iranian nationalist discourse of identity. In …

Drum Voice, Quinn J. Smallboy

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

My creative practice works to incorporate my own experiences and memories and connect these to issues confronting Indigenous communities. As I continue to develop this practice a key work has proven to show or highlight these issues. This work, reinterpreting the traditional drum form has offered immense possibilities. This document considers certain aspects of my culture and ask what Indigenous art means today.

Midheaven, Samantha R. Noseworthy

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

This dossier and accompanying exhibition at McIntosh Gallery, both titled Midheaven, constitutes my Master of Fine Arts Degree at the University of Western Ontario. Within this dossier I reflect upon what guides my art practice. This includes various historical influences, such as artist and writer Carolee Schneemann, philosopher Manly Palmer Hall, and the astrologer Stephanie Clement. In addition to the inclusion of anecdotes from my own life, within my thesis I analyze various occult concepts and practices, particularly tarot and astrology. I consider these understandings to be a direct window into the thought processes that drive my art practice. …

The Tapestry Of Memory, Kathryn M. Lawson

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

Rationality points to the complete annihilation and end of a life when the body perishes, and yet when a loved one dies we continue to experience that person in a myriad of ways. The focus of this thesis will be a phenomenological exploration of the earthly afterlife of those we have loved and lost. By positing the subject as always intersubjective and as temporal in nature, this thesis will investigate how we continue to create and interact with the deceased upon the earth. In the introduction, this work will be placed in the context of the phenomenological tradition. The first …