Arts and Humanities Commons^™

Emily, Jamie Holcombe 986459

Landscapes: the Journal of the International Centre for Landscape and Language

Landscape and Trauma; Public Memorials and Conflict Histories, Dwelling, Belonging, Nostalgia, Solastalgia, Sense of Place

This image depicts an elaborate and clearly heartfelt roadside memorial to “Emily”, which is an extraverted display of sadness and loss that is an increasingly familiar contemporary lament. We know not who Emily was, nor what happened to her. The story is unclear if the tragedy unfolded on the road outside the house, or inside the house itself, thus the house could have been either witness or host to her demise. The composition directs, but most certainly does not invite us via the gate to …

Mandurama Storm, Jamie Holcombe 986459

Landscapes: the Journal of the International Centre for Landscape and Language

Dwelling, Belonging, Nostalgia, Solastalgia, Sense of Place

This urban landscape, Mandurama Storm, highlights our resistance to the forces of nature. The photograph is underpinned by a similar sentiment to artist Laura Glusman, who writes, “the concept of landscape is not an isolated portion of land that exists only to be contemplated, but [is] a being imprinted with the traces of culture, storms, commerce and climate change”.

The image depicts an anonymous building behind a nondescript façade in the main street of a small town. It is of unknown purpose, but appears to be a former business. There are signs …

Two Tides, Jamie Holcombe

Landscapes: the Journal of the International Centre for Landscape and Language

Landscapes of/in Memory: Frontiers, Promised Lands, Lost Edens

This interior landscape finds its only cheer in the idyllic brackish waters depicted in a picturesque painting reproduction. The ideal coastal estuary adorning this space serves to highlight that our interior-orientated habitats often rest uncomfortably at odds with the natural landscape. There was a time when people who lived by the sea measured their lives by the tides, not clocks. Now ruled by the clock however, our working lives are often tied to a different tide, occasionally only punctuated by melancholic reminders, in this case provided by a painting on the gritty …

Coffin Bay, Jamie Holcombe 986459

Landscapes: the Journal of the International Centre for Landscape and Language

Dwelling, Belonging, Nostalgia, Solastalgia, Sense of Place

This landscape, photographed at Coffin Bay, contributes towards a solution to Glenn Albrecht’s solastalgia, which he terms soliphilia. It expresses my concern that we live too much in the shadow of fear and helplessness, needing to reclaim our relinquished responsibility for our own condition. To do this, we must first realise that we are heading towards a demise of our own making. This image metaphorically depicts exactly that, by suggesting that the highway of denial of our ancient rhythms, which carves its way through nature’s own warnings, careers relentlessly towards the …

The Photographic Other: Paradox In The Cathexis Of Longing, Alex Cilla Bradley

Theses: Doctorates and Masters

A photographic and written examination of paradox in relation to the photograph

This research aims to illuminate the relationship between paradox and photography, elaborated via Julia Kristeva’s notion of the abject. Paradox is considered in relation to photography in terms of repeated and unresolved debates about the status of the photograph as either an ‘index of reality’ (Bate, 2004, p. 1) or as a sign. The significance of this research lies in its re-motivation of abjection in terms of paradox, not in order to resolve such debates but, rather, to illuminate the importance of such unresolved contradictions in terms of …

Having A Voice And Being Heard: Photography And Children's Communication Through Photovoice, Panizza Allmark, Kylie J. Stevenson, Talhy Stotzer

Research outputs 2014 to 2021

Photography can be a powerful tool for self-expression. For those who are less empowered in our community, such as children, photography can provide a voice through images. It is a form of creativity that can provide a new way of seeing. This article examines the potential of photovoice as a meaningful way to develop critical thinking and communication approaches. Photovoice is a method of participatory action research that is innovative in the ways by which it enables participants to identify and represent their surroundings. Photovoice has been used in anthropology, public health, social work and education, and is associated with …

Shanghainese Parklife: Cultivating The Taoist Body And Exploring The Traces Of The Absent Figure And Creature In The Landscape, Brenton Mark Rossow

Theses : Honours

This creative Honours project explores Taoist body cultivation practices and the traces of the absent figure and creature in the landscape within Shanghainese parks. This exploration, presented in the form of a documentary and an audiovisual meditation, share a yin and yang relationship. Although they both contain elements of each other, the documentary celebrates body cultivation practices and their relationship to Taoism, while the audiovisual meditation examines the darker side of human relationships with the natural world in Shanghainese parks. Informed by Rod Giblett’s and Brian Eno’s theories concerning the human body’s relationship with the environment and the natural world, …

New Australian Plants And Animals. An Exhibition - And - Physiology, Phenomenology And Photography: Picturing The Indeterminate Within An Australian Art Practice. An Exegesis, Michael Gray

Theses: Doctorates and Masters

This practice-led research project investigates indeterminate aspects of perception related to human vision and postcolonial conditioning. Through an inventive range of lens-based artworks, the research draws parallels between preconscious visual phenomena and the subjective experience of non-indigenous Australians of multiple generations.

The resulting body of creative work, New Australian Plants and Animals, can be seen to approach preconscious visual phenomena derived from the physiology of the human eye through the use of primitive photographic lens technology. This process is applied to the subject matter: introduced plants and partially naturalised migrants. This synthesis of subject and materials creates new insights …

Reframed : A Collection Of Photographs, And, Capturing The Real : Reframing Visual Pleasure In The Photographed Female Nude, An Exegesis, Larry Defelippi

Theses : Honours

This creative Honours project is a practice-led inquiry into the photographed female nude. The images of the female nude photographed during the course of this project were taken in Australia and Colombia, providing a progression in aesthetics as the project unfolded. Informing the practice, and hence the images, is Roland Barthes’ concept of the punctum as read through Jacques Lacan’s psychoanalytical concept of the real. The project endeavours to develop an aesthetic of visual pleasure to liberate the female nude from a predominant psychosexual reading, and advocate a revisualisation of the nude as a less sexually objectified form.!In addition, while …

Trepidation: Void, James Farley

Landscapes: the Journal of the International Centre for Landscape and Language

An easy definition of the VOID eludes us, for each person’s understanding is unique. One may experience it as spiritual, but it need not be so. Others will relate to an implied sadness or loneliness that the infinite presents while some may find solace in the silence that I have created. By photographing these apparent scenes of “nothing”, I am asking you what is this, what are you looking for and what is missing? And the answer…

Interior Landscapes

Landscapes: the Journal of the International Centre for Landscape and Language

Impressions of Australia's interior adorn the interior of Mario's Palace Hotel in Broken Hill. Built in 1889 during the mining boom and purchased by Italian immigrant Mario Celotto in 1949, the walls of Mario's Palace Hotel were the canvas of Aboriginal artist, Gordon Wayne.

Pastoral scenes and plummeting waterfalls provide a stark albeit surreal contrast to the rocky plains and searing temperatures outside. Among the Australian landscapes appears Botticelli’s Venus – the work of Mario himself -- in what has been described as "Italian Renaissance meets Outback”.

The interior landscapes of Mario's Palace Hotel provide us with another vision of …

Anthropocene Autoscene, Alison Pouliot

Landscapes: the Journal of the International Centre for Landscape and Language

During the last decade in Switzerland, nature-culture connections enmeshed in landscapes constantly grab my gaze, perhaps more visibly than in my homeland, Australia. Abandoned vehicles in a winter forest - an ‘Autofriedhof’ - slowly subside into leaf litter – one of the most complex, little explored and biodiverse ecosystems on the planet. The enzymatic power of lichens, among the earth’s first colonisers, witness its demise as they disassemble the complex compounds of car paints and parts. Water and salt, rot and rust, subsume human creations returning to their elemental parts, to 'nature'.

An aesthetic beauty emerges as layers of paint, …

Portraits Of Vulnerable Ghosts: Contemporary Landscape Photography In Context

Landscapes: the Journal of the International Centre for Landscape and Language

In this paper creative immortality and experiential transcendence as forms of symbolic immortality are placed within a historical and contemporary landscape context. The thesis sets forward the argument that despite the best intentions for schematics of remembrance, these forms remain elusive and inherently mutable. Investigations into the sense of loss of self-inherent in the landscape are defined as a sort of experiential transcendence and approaches the sublime from a position of perceived narrative and yearning for connection with the greater movements of the earth and sky. An argument is made for the return to a level of reverence and understanding …

Memory, Truth And Justice: A Contextualisation Of The Uses Of Photographs Of The Victims Of State Terrorism In Argentina, 1972-2012: Communicating An Intersection Of Art, Politics And History, Richard Askam

Theses: Doctorates and Masters

Photographs of the victims of Argentine state terrorism from 1972 to 1983, and most prominently those of the detained-disappeared victims of the Proceso de Reorganización Nacional dictatorship (1976-1983), have had a significant role in elucidating the demands of human rights activists since the aftermath of the Trelew Massacre in 1972. In this thesis I examine the role of photographs of victims of state terrorism in the construction of unofficial, or counter, narratives critical of those produced by two dictatorships and by elected democratic administrations in the demand for truth and justice, and in the construction of social memory. I discuss …

Cultures Of Practice Within Design: An Exploration Of The Differences And Similarities Between Photography And Painting As Representational Practices, Alun John Price

Theses: Doctorates and Masters

Contemporary designers and photographers face many challenges as the profession rapidly develops. This is especially the case in in the Western Australian context. A review into the recent history of the Western Australian design profession is evidence that designers and photographers are consistently shifting between commercial and self-expressive practice. However, the urge to keep up with technological advancement has masked conscious development of this shift, which is a key to self-realisation and improvement for a designer and photographer. This lack of conscious questioning limits holistic development in design practice. This research reflects on myself as a designer developing a response …

A Landscape Photo Album As Self Portrait, Andrew Taylor

Landscapes: the Journal of the International Centre for Landscape and Language

abstract not required

Wild 1 - The North, Andrew Taylor

Landscapes: the Journal of the International Centre for Landscape and Language

Three students from Kenyon University in the United States participated in this unit. There were three main objectives. The first was to enable a reading of Western Australian writing in its relationship to the landscape - physical, social, and historical. The second was to locate Western Australian writing within the post-colonial perspective of Australian writing. The third was to formulate an appropriate theoretical framework for this. The central activity was a ten journey through the mid-west of western Australia. This intense experience was the equivalent of a whole semester's single unit workload.

Photography And The Paradigm Of The Trace, Daniel Nevin

Theses: Doctorates and Masters

The idea that photographs can be explained as traces made by the things they depict has been a recurring paradigm in theories about the nature of the photographic medium. Walter Benjamin, Charles Sanders Peirce, Susan Sontag, Andre Bazin and Roland Barthes are a few of the many theorists who have used the paradigm of the trace to explain the nature of photographs. The paradigm can also be argued to have been a significant influence in the work of prominent artists such as Gerhard Richter, Adam Fuss and Cornelia Parker whose work has explored the photographic medium. Through an exegesis and …

Capturing The Cape : A Photographic Case Study Of The Cape Range Bioregion Of Northwest Australia ; Straight Lines : A Photographic Case Study Of The Cape Range Bioregion Of Northwest Australia, David J. Bradley

Theses : Honours

In Australia, as with much of the world, landscape photography has played a significant role in raising awareness of human impact on the environment. For the most part, this awareness raises questions of conservation and preserving the natural world. Landscape photography commonly depicts environmental issues in one of two ways: the damaging effects of humanity’s mastery over the environment; or the sublime wonder of nature. In effect, the messages sent by landscape photography are singular, describing either nature, or culture. However, with an intention to develop a more sustainable viewpoint concerning humanity’s relationships with the environment, landscape photography could be …

Uncertain Surrenders: The Coexistence Of Beauty And Menace In The Maternal Bond And Photography, Toni Wilkinson

Theses: Doctorates and Masters

This creative inquiry is grounded in my maternal experiences and situated within a feminist approach to photography that develops a discussion of maternal passion and acknowledges the conflicting dynamics of the maternal relationship. The research includes a book of photographs of my children, Georgia and Henry, titled Uncertain surrenders, and a written component explicating the theoretical imperatives that motivated the project. I suggest that the coexistence of beauty and menace within the photographic portraits exquisitely represents the complexity of maternal passion. Julia Kristeva (2005) says, “we lack a reflection on maternal passion” in Western culture because it is an ambiguous …

Picturing A Postcolonial Australia : Breaking The 'White' Norm In Contemporary Creative Practice, Rebekah Rousi

Theses : Honours

This dissertation is about addressing social issues relating to colonial encounters from the perspective of a 'White' colonial Australian artist. The discussion seeks to address representational imbalances which occur within image construction as the result of a history of Imperial investment in defining the 'civilised Self against the non-European 'primitive Other' (Said, 1978). The label 'White' is analysed in terms of its contradictions and generalisations, where it is linked to a culturally assumed 'Self' positioning of human centrality and neutrality. This centrality (humanity) was used by Imperialists to justify reasoning behind colonial expansion. The thriving mechanisms of Euro-centric perception are …

Street Photography: An Approach To Strangers: Casual, Close And Personal Encounters, Flavia M. Schuster

Theses : Honours

Street photographers can either camouflage or reveal their identities to the strangers they photograph. By choosing to remain anonymous, photographers often create images in which only their subjects are exposed. By unveiling their identities however, they often create images in which their interaction becomes evident in the resulting images. Casual Encounters looks at the mechanisms employed by photographers that choose to remain anonymous in contrast to the myth of the flâneur. Close Encounters looks at the mechanisms employed between strangers to deal with their daily interactions in urban environments. Personal Encounters serves to explain my own approach to the strangers …

Collaboration, Demystification, Rea-Historiography : The Reclamation Of The Black Body By Contemporary Indigenous Female Photo-Media Artists, Eva Fernandez

Theses: Doctorates and Masters

This thesis examines the reclamation of the 'Blak' body by Indigenous female photo-media artists. The discussion will begin with an examination of photographic representatiors of Indigenous people by the colonising culture and their construction of 'Aboriginality'. The thesis will look at the introduction of Aboriginal artists to the medium of photography and their chronological movement through the decades This will begin with a documentary style approach in the 1960s to an intimate exploration of identity that came into prominence in the 1980s with an explosion of young urban photomedia artists, continuing into the 1990s and beyond. I will be examining …

Documentary Photography/Postmodern Commodities, Allan Radich

Theses : Honours

This honours project is divided into two parts. Part one is the written thesis. Part two is the photographic component. Part one discusses some of the practices and discourses associated with 'documentary' photography. Some documentary practices and discourses of the past can be seen to be culturally divisive. These practices and discourses were based on being, white, male and European. This ideology and its discursive modes are in conflict with contemporary photographic practices and the relevant social and cultural theories that define it. The thesis defines the discourses and practices of the modernist and postmodernist documentary photographer. It highlights the …

Images Of Ruin: Decay In A Post-Industrial World, Juha Tolonen

Theses : Honours

This thesis will examine the significance of ruin and decay in today's society, particularly the sites of industrial ruin in a post-industrial environment. It will explore the ways in which sites of ruin have been used and represented by competing cultural interests in the past and present. A focus will be on the industry of photography and its effects upon our understanding of sites of ruin, revealing possibilities for change in our aesthetic awareness of these sites. I will also include a portfolio of my own images reflecting my views and interests on a decaying industrial landscape.

Digital Imaging: Creating New Realities, Mark Datodi

Theses: Doctorates and Masters

More and more it is becoming increasingly difficult to discern photo reality from digital reality. Digital imagery is revolutionising photography and challenging preconceived notions of this art form. Over the years, photography has been viewed metaphorically as a window on the world and on the past. No longer however, is the creation of photographic imagery reliant upon its intrinsic relationship with reality. Using computer technology original photographic material can be altered, manipulated and seamlessly combined with other fictional imagery without obvious detection and with relative ease. The proliferation of digital imaging is producing two apparent crises for photography. The first …

Communicating Tissue Culture As Art, Ionat Zurr

Theses : Honours

Biologically related technologies are developing rapidly. Their effects will shape the future of human society and the human environment. This paper examines, through the discipline of Photomedia, possible futures dominated by biologically related technologies. More specifically, it explores the relevant issues through the art project called 'Tissue Culture & Art' (therefore refer to as TC&A). TC&A is a research and development project which explores the use of tissue culture and tissue engineering as a medium for artistic expression. Biologically related technologies can be used as a source for questioning the traditional meta-dichotomy of nature versus culture. TC&A redefines the terrain …