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Articles 1 - 30 of 138
Full-Text Articles in Art and Design
Zaytouna: Rooted Histories In Uprooted Memories, Naima M. Almajdobah
Zaytouna: Rooted Histories In Uprooted Memories, Naima M. Almajdobah
Theses and Dissertations
Palestinians, whether living under occupation or—like myself—in the diaspora, experience a complex journey of displacement and dispossession stemming from the Nakba of 1948. This reality shapes our collective identity, rooted in our connection to our homeland.
Zaytouna explores an under-researched topic: the relationship between the olive tree and uprooted Palestinians. It reveals a rich tapestry of narratives that encompass the quintessential and everlasting relationship between a land and its people. The resulting interactive archival installation consists of two parts: audio recordings from Palestinians in the diaspora, which capture their memories and voices; and visuals, which represent the storytellers’ places of …
In Shame I Will Find Paradise, Taehee Whang
In Shame I Will Find Paradise, Taehee Whang
Theses and Dissertations
As a Korean American non-binary digital artist and designer, my recent explorations have focused on using voice as a medium to articulate nuanced feelings of displacement and the intricate relationships between language, identity, and expression. This journey expands beyond my personal experiences with gender dysphoria, delving into the lives of non-binary and transgender individuals undergoing gender-affirming voice therapy. Through my thesis research, I have developed interactive multimedia installations inspired by dialogues with individuals such as Umico Niwa, who traveled to Korea for voice feminization surgery, and Jeong Yoon Lee from Hyperlink Press, a four-year participant in Hormone Replacement Therapy (HRT). …
Beyond The Veil: Hijabi Superheroes And The Power Of Representation, Moom Thahinah Ms
Beyond The Veil: Hijabi Superheroes And The Power Of Representation, Moom Thahinah Ms
Theses and Dissertations
As a Hijabi woman, I am often misrepresented by stereotypical narratives in Western media that obscure my individuality and agency. My thesis addresses the misrepresentation of Hijabi women, challenges audience perceptions, and empowers Hijabi women to confront these narratives.
Informed by design and media discourse, I developed a narrative and a Hijabi superhero character appropriating tropes of Western comic books. The resulting research combines two outcomes: a print-based narrative and a transformative garment. Print media is used to address the lack of Hijabi representation in Western comics while showcasing the character’s ability to combat discrimination. Derived from the comic format, …
How To Forget, Jesse D. Hoyle
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 …
Unfolding Remembrance: Folding Islamic Principles Into Pondering Machines, Hind Al Saad Al-Kuwari
Unfolding Remembrance: Folding Islamic Principles Into Pondering Machines, Hind Al Saad Al-Kuwari
Theses and Dissertations
Principles of early Islamic art can be surveyed as a precursor to Western computational art. Though produced in different historical and cultural contexts, Islamic art and computational art are connected by underlying structures—arithmetic, harmony, and the concept of the Infinite.
Islamic developments in knowledge, like algebra, contributed to mathematics and mechanics—the building blocks of contemporary technology. Returning to Islam’s traditional harmony between religion and science, my creative practice constructs machines as an act of worship (ʿibadah), folding Islamic principles into the medium of computation.
Selected verses from the Quran are used as the core of each automaton (self-operating machine). Their …
Tchu Tcha Tcha: The Transformative Role Of Funk, Adriane De Souza
Tchu Tcha Tcha: The Transformative Role Of Funk, Adriane De Souza
Theses and Dissertations
Cultural disconnection and homesickness are part of expatriate life. My research investigates the transformative power of Brazilian funk, which, for me, evokes restorative memories of home and life in Rio de Janeiro.
Originating in North America, funk made an exciting leap and found a new home in Brazil, particularly in Rio de Janeiro. Over time, it has become firmly established and thoroughly Brazilianized, infused with local instruments and influences, leading to the emergence of a new genre of music known as Brazilian funk.
Transplanted again, to Qatar, this work celebrates the migration of funk through a combination of still images, …
Capiz Reborn: Preserving And Enhancing Traditional Philippine Shellcraft, Destarte A. Prieto
Capiz Reborn: Preserving And Enhancing Traditional Philippine Shellcraft, Destarte A. Prieto
Theses and Dissertations
The capiz shell is a thin, translucent exoskeleton of a mollusk found in the Philippine Sea. Traditionally, capiz shells were made into window panes and home decor, used so widely they became an iconic part of Philippine identity. Today, the influx of cheap, mass-produced merchandise threatens the capiz shell industry. To encourage renewed interest and sustainable revival of this long-standing industry, my research demonstrates new possibilities for the capiz shell.
In reconstituting cast-off bits and shell trimmings to form a new capiz biomaterial, my work is informed by the three traditional techniques used by Philippine capiz artisans—sewing, welding and bonding. …
A Constructed Memoir: The History And Heritage Of The Baloch Community In Qatar, Somaia Nahang Dorzadeh
A Constructed Memoir: The History And Heritage Of The Baloch Community In Qatar, Somaia Nahang Dorzadeh
Theses and Dissertations
In the 1960s, when my father was only thirteen years old, he took a perilous journey on a boat alone from Sistan va Baluchestan, Iran, to Qatar, in the hopes of a better life. Like many long-term residents from Balochistan, my father has lived in Qatar for decades, predating the establishment of the modern state of Qatar itself in 1971. His legal position in the country today remains subject to the Kafala system, and his residency is subject to his employment status, which must be renewed each year. In other words, permanency is never guaranteed, nor is future planning.
In …
Waiting To Exhale, Abigail H. Ogle
Waiting To Exhale, Abigail H. Ogle
Theses and Dissertations
We breathe as a measure of time, it keeps us alive, and fabricates the pattern of our lives. We are punctuated by “snarls,” “glitches,” or moments of irregularity – of trying to catch one's breath, having it taken away, or gasping for it. It is the punctuation of sighs, huffs, sniffs, scoffs, screams, and deep intakes that appear as glitches in the breathing system.
In our daily rhythm of breathing, the presence of the glitch, defined as potentiality, can create space for something unexpected or new to arise. Using the wind from fans and approximately 1,260 square feet of silk, …
Totem Impulse, Tendai T. Mupita
Totem Impulse, Tendai T. Mupita
Theses and Dissertations
In this reading, I explore the performative and complexities of indigenous mythologies, cosmologies, and epistemologies, through totems, folklore, architecture, and games. This paper extracts references from indigenous philosophies in thinking about form and image. These forms and images are my sculptures, my installations, and my lines.
Frewayni's Garden: Preserving Tigrayan Culture During A Period Of Ethnocide, Gabrielle F. Tesfaye
Frewayni's Garden: Preserving Tigrayan Culture During A Period Of Ethnocide, Gabrielle F. Tesfaye
Theses and Dissertations
The recent and ongoing genocidal war in Tigray, Ethiopia, has witnessed the destruction and looting of countless historical religious sites, ancient manuscripts, and artifacts, leaving Tigray’s remaining cultural heritage extremely vulnerable. Such cultural loss erases a shared understanding across generations, robbing them of their history and identity. My work contributes to the safeguarding of Tigray’s cultural heritage and collective memory, informed by literature on cultural preservation efforts in post-war societies, and a series of interviews with Tigrayans in the diaspora and in Ethiopia.
The outcome of this thesis is embodied in a series of distinct jebenas, traditional Tigrayan clay coffee …
The Living Legends Of Sholoukh – شلوخ الأساطير Facial Scarification In Sudan, Ayah S. Elnour
The Living Legends Of Sholoukh – شلوخ الأساطير Facial Scarification In Sudan, Ayah S. Elnour
Theses and Dissertations
Sholoukh — ritual face scarring—is a dying art form in Sudan.
Used to distinguish members of one tribe from another,
Sholoukh reflects the tribal pride of an individual. In the past,
sholoukh was seen as important as having a passport for a tribe
member, however, it was not always applied by choice. Using
just a razor blade, the wisest, most senior tribal elder would scar
the face of a child, initiating them into the tribe for life.
As this tribal art form fades away, the dwindling Sholoukh-bearers
have become living legends in Sudan. To honor them, I create
a collage …
Behind The Gate: Syrian Women In Soap Operas - Perception Vs. Reality, Tasnim J. Rahimah
Behind The Gate: Syrian Women In Soap Operas - Perception Vs. Reality, Tasnim J. Rahimah
Theses and Dissertations
Syria has witnessed what is known as al-fawra al-drameya, an eruption of drama since 2000. Every year, especially during Ramadan, dozens of Syrian soap operas are aired across the Arab world and beyond, depicting Syrians’ historical struggles as they fought for liberation from the French mandate at the beginning of the 20th century. Although women of those days were a vital part of that liberation movement and had prominent societal roles, these historical fiction soap operas chose to portray only the demure and dismissive female figures and not mention the women who were independent, courageous, and active members of the …
Refashioning Style From The Outside-In: A Pakistani Diasporic Response, Sidra Sohail Khawaja
Refashioning Style From The Outside-In: A Pakistani Diasporic Response, Sidra Sohail Khawaja
Theses and Dissertations
Pakistan’s traditionalists and modernists hold opposing political, religious, social and nationalist views creating a constant tension within the culture. This tension creates a fashion industry with two extremes, one side reflecting traditional influences and the other reflecting western trends. I address the tension by analysing the craft and context of traditional Pakistani men’s clothing and incorporating traditional construction techniques into garments that reflect aspects of both points of view. In a series of five looks, I extract from influences like Persian, North Indian, Afghani, Colonial and Neo-Colonial, to generate hybridized garments that offer a new perspective, blending traditional elements with …
Driven By Personality: Exploring The Relationship Between Custom Cars And Self-Expression, Tharwa Dalansi
Driven By Personality: Exploring The Relationship Between Custom Cars And Self-Expression, Tharwa Dalansi
Theses and Dissertations
Custom Car Culture (CCC) is a form of creativity that emerges from personal identities and passions. It involves the restoration, modification and personal adornment of commercially manufactured cars. This process creates a journey, where the enthusiast goes through multiple phases of self-reflection. But due to a lack of local resources, Qatar-based CCC enthusiasts often have to send their cars abroad to Dubai or Japan in order to customize them, relinquishing creative control in the process.
In response to these challenges, based on observations and interviews conducted among actual CCC enthusiasts, I develop a platform for engagement between these enthusiasts and …
Nuff Love: From Me To You, Katherine S. Thompson
Nuff Love: From Me To You, Katherine S. Thompson
Theses and Dissertations
The thesis exhibition, Nuff Love: From Me to You, explores the profound impact of diasporic memory on identity within the family structure, particularly for those who were born after immigration. This unpacking of memories is achieved through photographs, collages, and installations that reveal the distant and absent attributes that reside within the home. As a second-generation American of Afro-Jamaican descent, this thesis navigates how the dual identity becomes too complex and is never allowed to exist in a binary state. The constant state of in-betweenness between both cultures led to further questioning of selfhood beyond the Caribbean identity maintained by …
Breaking Bread & Boundaries : Finding Home In Every Bite, Steffi Ann Braganza
Breaking Bread & Boundaries : Finding Home In Every Bite, Steffi Ann Braganza
Theses and Dissertations
Raised outside of their “passport” countries, Third Culture Individuals (TCIs) often experience a lack of rootedness and belonging, and home is often everywhere and nowhere. Childhood food memories can provide the sense of connection and identity TCIs crave. Four Qatar-raised TCIs, from very different backgrounds share memories of their childhood comfort foods, now hybridized dishes, that reflect their unique third culture experiences. Each dish, in turn, inspired the creation of a bespoke set of cooking /dining ware designed to trigger a specific sensory memory: the sight, smell, touch, or sound associated with the original comfort dish. This specialized cooking/dining ware …
Reclaiming The Appropriated Space Through Care, William P. Glaser
Reclaiming The Appropriated Space Through Care, William P. Glaser
Theses and Dissertations
This thesis navigates the complex and (at times) frustrating experience of balancing caregiving and art making while attempting to converge both practices into one. The collaboration of caregiving and art making serves as a potential solution for those that struggle with the seemingly unreconcilable stratification of both activities.
Cadent Diffusion: Permeating The Membrane, Isabella M. Kubo
Cadent Diffusion: Permeating The Membrane, Isabella M. Kubo
Theses and Dissertations
cadent diffusion: permeating the membrane explores and documents KUBO's journey of cultivating a sustainable and curious artistic practice during their Master’s program in Richmond, Virginia (Powhatan Land) from the Fall of 2020 to the Spring of 2022.
KUBO's practice is the affirmation between life and change in an attempt to work along the forces of singularity; to free lines, scores, concepts, and events from structures that otherwise bind them.The cadent diffusion is the rhythm in this force. Or perhaps, it is the force itself.
The Silent Rage Of Being Loved, Michelle R. Albertson
The Silent Rage Of Being Loved, Michelle R. Albertson
Theses and Dissertations
The Silent Rage of Being Loved is a multimedia installation working primarily with photography, video, and sculpture. It explores the nuanced ways in which memory, grief, and veneration manifest physically in my life through objects and my body. My proposed thesis installation is intended as a place of refuge for my audience amongst a shrine-like space and for us, collectively, to reexamine and widen the ways in which we experience mourning and grief.
Less Water, More Holy: Tools For Sustainable Ablution, Faheem Khan
Less Water, More Holy: Tools For Sustainable Ablution, Faheem Khan
Theses and Dissertations
Prayer is an important part of life for many people, whether it takes the form of meditation or talking to God. Muslims pray five times a day, and before each prayer, they first clean themselves by performing ritual ablution (wudu). The eight-step purification process of wudu cleanses the body from head to toe. The Hadiths of Sahih al-Bukhari and Sahih Muslim tell us the Prophet Muhammad ﷺ needed just one mudd of water (650ml) to complete wudu, but most people consume many times that amount—four-to-seven liters is more common today.
To visualize and better understand the nature …
Roots And Webs And Nets And Branches And Bulletin Boards And Banners And Newsletters And Mutual Aid Text Threads And Kin And Caretakers And Porches And Poems Of Today And Spaces Of Survival, Lukaza Branfman-Verissimo
Roots And Webs And Nets And Branches And Bulletin Boards And Banners And Newsletters And Mutual Aid Text Threads And Kin And Caretakers And Porches And Poems Of Today And Spaces Of Survival, Lukaza Branfman-Verissimo
Theses and Dissertations
As I welcome Richmond, VA into my family, I find myself needing to make roots and webs and nets and branches that ground me, that place myself as a Black, queer, mixed race, artist, activist, educator, storyteller, and cultural worker in this city. I am called to the streets before I am called to my studio. I question what it means to be a part of an institution that is slowly eating this city up. I become a story collector. I need to know where I am and whose land I now call home.
Eadah: Tools For Celebrating Qatari Wellness Rituals, Abdulrahman Al Muftah
Eadah: Tools For Celebrating Qatari Wellness Rituals, Abdulrahman Al Muftah
Theses and Dissertations
Friday prayer is an essential congregational practice in Muslim communities. To prepare for Friday prayer, worshippers groom and cleanse themselves ahead of time, according to Islamic ablution rituals, and dress in their best attire.
Eadah is a collection of contemporary tools designed to facilitate the pre-prayer cleansing ritual, inspired by traditional Qatari remedies and wellness practices. The tools reflect three balanced considerations: touch, meditative making, and cultural preservation. They are used to prepare natural ingredients through mindful making that produce remedies with stimulating scents and sensations through touch. An emphasis on cultural preservation differentiates Eadah from other tools offered by …
Metamosque – Envisioning The Mosque As A Virtual Public Space, Alaa Albarazy
Metamosque – Envisioning The Mosque As A Virtual Public Space, Alaa Albarazy
Theses and Dissertations
Historically, the mosque was not only a space for a communal prayer but also a place for building a community. Today, however, with conflicts and diseases fragmenting society, people are less able to gather physically in large spaces. Out of necessity, people rely on technology to get together and interact virtually. In this context, my research challenges the notion of the mosque as a physical space, proposing, instead, its extension into virtual space. Recent global events pose the question: Can the metaverse offer an opportunity for the mosque to reassert itself as a public space. I propose that a MetaMosque …
Spectrum Of Shit, Hannah Hiaasen
Spectrum Of Shit, Hannah Hiaasen
Theses and Dissertations
Contending with the loss of a parent to a mass shooting in their workplace, a newsroom, I find myself suspended in time, in an office. Post-its, fans, button-ups, snow globes, clipboards, reporters notebooks, scrap paper, jot downs, keyboards hold me up. I crave the comfort of repetitive cumulative hand work. Quilting, weaving, and cutting away help me breathe, haptically process and memorialize these grieving objects, this grieving person. Weed-wacking towards intimacy, my work employs a range of materials to mourn the mundanity of a workday, fantasize transformative justice, and steward embodied grief to the surface. My only speed is slow-- …
Again Black Again, Muthi Reed
Again Black Again, Muthi Reed
Theses and Dissertations
ABSTRACT
AGAIN BLACK AGAIN
by muthi reed, M.F.A
A thesis submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Fine Arts at Virginia Commonwealth University.
Program Director: Stephen Vitiello
Committee: Semi Ryu, Orla McHardy, MK Abadoo, Cara Benedetto
AGAIN BLACK AGAIN. ABA-BBABB is documentation of a reparations practice and articulations for a reparations manifesto devised by the artist. Reparations begins with the self. Singing truth to the self. Talking with the self. The thesis organizes around the problems of surveillance and myth making about Black people and the subsequent source of self-regard, conjure and social dreaming …
Difficult Paintings, Hao (Damien) Ding
Difficult Paintings, Hao (Damien) Ding
Theses and Dissertations
The sublime as a concept has a fraught and racist history. However, it remains the single most helpful idea in describing the deeply felt state of being when one comes across something ineffably powerful. From an art-making perspective, this thesis, and the accompanying exhibition of installations and paintings, proposes an alternative construction of the concept of the sublime. Using Lacanian psychoanalysis as a conceptual point of departure, a painter can manipulate the relationship of the viewer and paintings to create paradoxical moments of simultaneous intimacy and distance, which interact to create an alternative path towards the sublime. Through descriptions of …
The Algorithmic Mashrabiya: Reimagining The Traditional Islamic Screen, Ahmed Nour
The Algorithmic Mashrabiya: Reimagining The Traditional Islamic Screen, Ahmed Nour
Theses and Dissertations
Traditionally, a mashrabiya was an ornate wooden structure attached to the side of an Arabian building or house, with small, intricately patterned openings to provide both ventilation and privacy for the people inside. The patterns, following the geometric rules of Islamic ornament, lent a distinctive appearance to buildings in the region. A mashrabiya converted the house into a safe, private sanctuary, providing a magical scene inside, characterized by linear sun rays, filtered points of light and shadow. Over time, as building technology changed and the number of skilled craftsmen dwindled, the traditional mashrabiya has all but vanished. The aim of …
Humanizing Architecture: A Polymorphic Space, Nada Abbara
Humanizing Architecture: A Polymorphic Space, Nada Abbara
Theses and Dissertations
The built environments in which our communities thrive constitute an integral part of human experience and evolution. Yet, many places are detached from the way we experience them due to mass-production, which often produces standardized environments, and due to the tendency of modern architecture to delineate spaces as static objects rather than dynamic interactions. Thus, there is an emerging need to humanize architecture through an interdisciplinary approach that engages nature’s behavioral patterns. The project proposes a transformable polyhedral structure that interacts with human emotion through a three-dimensional morphing space that contracts and expands. This spatial interaction is achieved through a …
Yolkkh: The Story Of My People, Amna Zelimkha Yandarbin
Yolkkh: The Story Of My People, Amna Zelimkha Yandarbin
Theses and Dissertations
The name of my project is: Yolkkh, The Story of My People. With this project I present a series of scarves each one bearing an illustrated scene in order to tell a story – my story and the story of the Noxci people. Noxci are the people who are referred to as “Chechens” by Russians and are generally known by that title. As a Muslim, I have witnessed the way Western media tend to dehumanize my community. In order to contrast this dehumanizing process, I thought that telling the story of my family would help reverse Islamophobic tendencies and raise …