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The Taxonomy Of Extinction: Brian Jungen’S Tombstone, Jasen Evoy

Theses

This thesis focuses on the recent work (Tombstone, 2019) by Brian Jungen, a Canadian artist of mixed European and Dane-zaa heritage. The work is explored in detail, leveraging concepts present in Jungen’s existing body of work to extract intent and meaning through Jungen’s complex use of space, materiality, and iconography. Tombstone is a large scale, multimedia sculpture consisting of white plastic Rubbermaid stepstools cut and assembled into the form of a turtle or tortoise shell resting on a bank of thirty-seven black filing cabinets. While Tombstone initially presents itself as aesthetically sparse, it is a deeply-layered commentary on inequity, power …