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Full-Text Articles in Art Practice

Animals In Drama And Theatrical Performance: Anthropocentric Emotionalism, Peta Tait Dec 2020

Animals In Drama And Theatrical Performance: Anthropocentric Emotionalism, Peta Tait

Animal Studies Journal

This article outlines how nonhuman animals are framed by the emotions of drama, theatre and contemporary performance and considers a distinctive tradition in western culture of enacting animal characters who function as surrogate humans. It argues that, contradictorily, while animal characters confirm anthropocentric emotionalism, drama also contains pro-animal values and concern for animal welfare. Animals embodying emotions in theatrical languages are part of the way animals are used in the traditions of western culture and to think and philosophize with, but they also indicate thinking about the emotions in theatrical performance. The article considers if, however, staging living animals can …


Precarity In Feminism And Feminist Art Education: Decentering Whiteness Through Reproductive Justice Activism, Michelle Bae-Dimitriadis, Olga Ivashkevich Sep 2020

Precarity In Feminism And Feminist Art Education: Decentering Whiteness Through Reproductive Justice Activism, Michelle Bae-Dimitriadis, Olga Ivashkevich

Journal of Social Theory in Art Education

The article addresses precarity in mainstream feminism and feminist art education as a systemic dismissal and exclusion of the critical concerns and voices by disenfranchised women of color from its narratives and agendas. It draws on a case of the reproductive justice feminist activism to illustrate how the mainstream pro-choice feminist movement neglected the urgent and often life threatening reproductive concerns by Black, Brown, Indigenous and immigrant women, which led to an establishment of the reproductive justice coalitions by activists of color. The reproductive justice movement is an important call to action to challenge and decenter Whiteness in mainstream feminism …


Creating Places-Of-Memory: Photographs, Identity, & Matrilineality, Aylah Ireland Aug 2020

Creating Places-Of-Memory: Photographs, Identity, & Matrilineality, Aylah Ireland

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

My artistic practice and family genealogy create the opportunity for a change in the perception of family history. I seek to illuminate and reframe family history and definitions of self while exploring an alternative to, or an addendum to, the patrilineal model of genealogy. Using the photographs and information gathered from my matrilineal bloodline and my preconceived definitions of self, I have created artworks that are places-of-memory. The places-of-memory, sometimes locations, sometimes objects, or sometimes the interaction with objects in an environment, provide an opportunity for discussion regarding the omitted or dismissed nature of the matrilineal line. This paper outlines …


Critically And Creatively Engaging With Trauma-Informed Mental Health Research And Treatment Of Lgbtqia+ Communities As Expressive Arts Therapists: A Literature Review, Kelli Lavallee Jun 2020

Critically And Creatively Engaging With Trauma-Informed Mental Health Research And Treatment Of Lgbtqia+ Communities As Expressive Arts Therapists: A Literature Review, Kelli Lavallee

Expressive Therapies Capstone Theses

Expressive Arts Therapists are uniquely situated as both artists and mental health counselors working in psychological pedagogy rooted in systems of oppression. Given the arts-based approaches to the therapeutic relationship, it can be unethical to offer these approaches without acknowledgement of the ways in which the arts intersect with social justice, and justice is only viable if practitioners critically review the clinical mental health education they are consuming from the institutions they learn in, specifically trauma-informed mental health research assimilation and treatment approaches for Expressive Arts Therapists in training, practice, and education. A review of the literature in this paper …


Intermodal Art Method To Explore Personal And Cultural Narratives, Zoe Boucher May 2020

Intermodal Art Method To Explore Personal And Cultural Narratives, Zoe Boucher

Expressive Therapies Capstone Theses

In this capstone thesis, art-based research (ABR) is examined through a critical, intersectional perspective to explore how it can be used as a method to reveal areas that impact transference and countertransference and thus to support supervision and emerging clinical practice. This heuristic study explored the benefits of poetry and response art within the home setting of a black biracial, Guadeloupean American, female-identifying cisgender individual, 31 years of age. Through qualitative, arts-based research, data was collected in the form of blackout poetry, painting, and journaling. A thematic analysis of the visual and textual data sources revealed three themes: an intermodal …


Crystal Queer: Fracturing The Binaries Of Matter, Creation, And Landscape, Sarah Knight May 2020

Crystal Queer: Fracturing The Binaries Of Matter, Creation, And Landscape, Sarah Knight

Graduate School of Art Theses

In this thesis, I compile a series of fragments consisting an analysis of my artwork in the gendered contexts of landscape, self-identity, mythology, and philosophy. I develop my concept of a “queer mark” in my art that serves as a form of queering, a disruption of visual and conceptual cohesion. I form a picture of how our contemporary selves are influenced by our gendered understanding of the landscape through the analysis of philosophical, artistic, and mythological concepts of creation. I see my sculptures as an atlas to an alternative means of understanding identity, a queering of these historical and exclusionary …


Pleasure Is All Mine, Lola Ogbara May 2020

Pleasure Is All Mine, Lola Ogbara

Graduate School of Art Theses

One’s identity is shaped by many factors such as race, culture, physical appearance, nationality, and religion—amongst many more. As an artist, the subjugation of identity in the context of race, gender, and sexuality is a world I examine closely. Subverting myths of sexual deviancy and racial inferiority that perpetually pathologizes Black feminine sexuality, I often use and reference my own body to create avenues of power through physical and intellectual pleasure. Through material use of clay, metal, photography, and installation, I emphasize on how contemporary Black social cultures are able to write their own narratives in order to further progressions …


Big Girl | Little Girl, Emily Mueller May 2020

Big Girl | Little Girl, Emily Mueller

Graduate School of Art Theses

In my thesis document, I unpack the relationship of my photographs to space, bodies, language, and childhood through a feminist lens. The interaction with these various aspects alludes to larger societal structures that inform identity. I am interested in the negotiation between gender and the way it informs the occupation of space, both photographic and physical. The intersection between subjects and objects is dissected using the definitions of these terms set forth by Judith Butler. Becoming a subject does not indicate that one is free from the power that creates it. The figure in my photographs wonders if attempting to …


The Complexities Of Intimacy, Brie Henderson May 2020

The Complexities Of Intimacy, Brie Henderson

Graduate School of Art Theses

Through my research I have discovered there are many complexities that exist within the topic of intimacy. Of these complexities, I chose to explore the topics attachment and codependency in my final series. Attachment and codependency are deeply rooted in psychology, poetry, and many artist’s practices. The relationship between poetry and my work has become deeply intertwined. I combine poetry with my work as a way to document my feelings and to inspire the titles for my paintings. Through a series of intimate watercolor paintings, I reference bodies, intimate interactions and the ambiguity within the two. This ambiguity asks viewers …


An Open Bag, Matilde Benmayor Jan 2020

An Open Bag, Matilde Benmayor

Theses and Dissertations

What do we take with us? How much space should we leave in the bag for what we might find? This paper is a journey from under the rug and onto the pavement. Sowing spiderweb maps I try to make a new city my own.


Tendertopia, April Fionn Perin Wogenburg Jan 2020

Tendertopia, April Fionn Perin Wogenburg

Senior Projects Spring 2020

Senior Project submitted to The Division of Arts of Bard College.


Body Politic: A Critical Comparison Of Marina Abramovic And Chris Burden, Lauren Minor Jan 2020

Body Politic: A Critical Comparison Of Marina Abramovic And Chris Burden, Lauren Minor

Regis University Student Publications (comprehensive collection)

A significant component of contemporary arts is performance art. Two spearheads of the birth of performance art are the Serbian artist Marina Abramovic, and the American Chris Burden, both of whom worked primarily in the 1970s. Abramovic and Burden have often been compared for the similar characteristics of their work: both artists create intense, provocative, and violent work. While Abramovic uses these aspects of her work to make political or social commentary, and connect to her audiences on a humanistic level, Burden uses these aspects without creating a deeper meaning or inspiring thoughtful dialogue. By exploring several comparable works by …


Martian Mother, Elizabeth Mcgrady Jan 2020

Martian Mother, Elizabeth Mcgrady

Theses and Dissertations

This paper examines the relationship between humans and land, through the lens of the scientific and religious, bridging the physical realm with the spiritual. It acts as accompanying material to the project titled Martian Mother, supplementary information to the visual work, and an extension of the proposal, the center of the work. The proposal exists to send myself, or a like-minded individual, to Mars with artificial insemination equipment to give birth to the first Martian, becoming the first Martian Mother. This work is rooted firmly in speculative fiction, creating a nonlinear future framework for a new society and space exploration.


Chupa Chuparosas Y Chupacabras, Ruben U. Rodriguez Jan 2020

Chupa Chuparosas Y Chupacabras, Ruben U. Rodriguez

Theses and Dissertations

A Rascuache Nahual that uses therianthropy on the border between the US and Mexico border.


How Many Licks, Ashley Goodwin Jan 2020

How Many Licks, Ashley Goodwin

Theses and Dissertations

Arts communities are currently reevaluating and restructuring power dynamics within their systems to accommodate a broader range of experience and subjectivity. However, the forces of control are still largely dictated by a broader patriarchal culture. This complicated, tangled dynamic is the focus of my research. Female artists who make work about men or about patriarchy more generally, are consistently subjected to its influence as the dominant cultural experience—the invisible “truth” that everything either is, or acts in reaction to its position. In reality, patriarchy is no longer gender specific. I will be addressing my relationship to it as well as …


Free To Be Dog Haven: Dogs Who May Never Be Pets?, René J. Marquez Jan 2020

Free To Be Dog Haven: Dogs Who May Never Be Pets?, René J. Marquez

Animal Studies Journal

I am an artist who runs a sanctuary for dogs. I did not start the sanctuary as a studio project, but, as it turns out, it is very much an extension of my studio work. The sanctuary focuses on acknowledging canine subjectivity and agency in the context of colonialist, Western, modernist human fictions, a context explored throughout my work, in general. Our sanctuary is a site of ongoing investigation: we seek to map the territory between ‘free’ and ‘pet’. This paper examines the thinking behind and the practical life of my dog sanctuary: exigencies of doghuman collaboration and what it …


In Memoriam: Dr Deidre Wicks (1949-2020), Melissa Boyde Jan 2020

In Memoriam: Dr Deidre Wicks (1949-2020), Melissa Boyde

Animal Studies Journal

In Memoriam: Dr Deidre Wicks (1949-2020)


A Story About A Girl With Snakes For Hair, Kate M. Turner Jan 2020

A Story About A Girl With Snakes For Hair, Kate M. Turner

Theses and Dissertations

My work is autobiographical. I use various art making processes to create a visual archive of my life. By abstracting these memories and experiences, I can examine how culture works surrounding issues of identity. This is my story.


Paul By Paul By Paul, Paul Finch Jan 2020

Paul By Paul By Paul, Paul Finch

Theses and Dissertations

In 2020 flamboyant fashion is associated with queer performativity. Psychologist Alan Downs and queer theorist madison moore understand this to be a response to a culture that is hostile to sexual behaviour and gender expression that falls outside a rigid binary. I study the history of flamboyant aesthetics and camp sensibilities from an intersectional perspective, and locate designers and artists who have produced clothes in ways that materialize the political implications of fashion. As a studio-based artist, I employ traditional sewing techniques, digital technologies, and performance to create clothes and new media works that demonstrate a circular understanding of time, …


[Review] Hope Ferdowsian, Phoenix Zones: Where Strength Is Born And Resilience Lives, Chicago University Press, 2018. 212 Pp., Teya Brooks Pribac Jan 2020

[Review] Hope Ferdowsian, Phoenix Zones: Where Strength Is Born And Resilience Lives, Chicago University Press, 2018. 212 Pp., Teya Brooks Pribac

Animal Studies Journal

[Review] Hope Ferdowsian, Phoenix Zones: Where Strength is Born and Resilience Lives, Chicago University Press, 2018. 212 pp. It was a Sunday morning in mid-September. I was woken up by the sound of rain. Thick, steady, there to stay, at least for the day. For a moment I wondered whether I should skip my morning run but decided against it. I wanted to honour the rain at a time when parts of the world were so desperate for it. The streets were empty of humans, the rest of nature relishing the much- needed soak. I thought of resilience.


[Review] Kristen Guest And Monica Mattfield, Editors. Equestrian Cultures: Horse, Humans, Human Society, And The Discourse Of Modernity. Animal Lives Series, University Of Chicago Press, 2019. 276 Pp., Wendy Woodward Jan 2020

[Review] Kristen Guest And Monica Mattfield, Editors. Equestrian Cultures: Horse, Humans, Human Society, And The Discourse Of Modernity. Animal Lives Series, University Of Chicago Press, 2019. 276 Pp., Wendy Woodward

Animal Studies Journal

[Review] Kristen Guest and Monica Mattfield, editors. Equestrian Cultures: Horse, Humans, Human Society, and the Discourse of Modernity. Animal Lives Series, University of Chicago Press, 2019. 276 pp. Differences in equestrian cultures have recently been brought home to me. My horse moved to a newly established yard which soon developed into one catering only for endurance racing horses. The horses were kept in small pens, only permitted into the stony field every second day. Human attitudes to the horses were functionalist with the horses always for sale to the highest bidder from the UAE. Galahad is back now at a …


[Review] Paula Acari. Making Sense Of ‘Food’ Animals: A Critical Exploration Of The Persistence Of Meat. Palgrave Macmillan, 2019. 356 Pp., Alex Lockwood Jan 2020

[Review] Paula Acari. Making Sense Of ‘Food’ Animals: A Critical Exploration Of The Persistence Of Meat. Palgrave Macmillan, 2019. 356 Pp., Alex Lockwood

Animal Studies Journal

[Review] Paula Acari. Making Sense of ‘Food’ Animals: A Critical Exploration of the Persistence of Meat. Palgrave Macmillan, 2019. 356 pp. There are many audiences for Paula Acari’s new book on the persistence of meat as edible matter, Making Sense of Food Animals, and not all of them academic. One of the striking facets of this well-researched, clearly argued and empirical analysis, drawing on 41 interviews with Australian meat eaters and meat producers, is the lessons for animal advocacy organisations for rethinking their messaging strategies. Central to the book’s argument is Acari’s challenge to narratives of transparency and visibility, …


[Review] Laura Jean Mckay, The Animals In That Country. Scribe 2020. 288 Pp., Philip Armstrong Jan 2020

[Review] Laura Jean Mckay, The Animals In That Country. Scribe 2020. 288 Pp., Philip Armstrong

Animal Studies Journal

[Review] Laura Jean McKay, The Animals in That Country. Scribe 2020. 288 pp. How do animals experience their lives and their worlds? How can we know? How can we represent their interests if we can’t know? Should we be trying to speak on their behalf at all?


Should New Zealand Do More To Uphold Animal Welfare?, Andrew Knight Jan 2020

Should New Zealand Do More To Uphold Animal Welfare?, Andrew Knight

Animal Studies Journal

Governmental and industry representatives have repeatedly claimed that Aotearoa New Zealand leads the world on animal welfare, largely based on an assessment by global animal protection charity World Animal Protection (WAP). New Zealand’s leading ranking rested primarily on favourable comparisons of its animal welfare legislation with that of 50 other nations, within WAP’s 2014 Animal Protection Index. Unfortunately, however, review of welfare problems extant within the farming of meat chickens and laying hens, pigs, cows and sheep, reveals the persistence of systemic welfare compromises within most New Zealand animal farming systems. These are contrary to good ethics, to our duty …


How To Help When It Hurts: Act Individually (And In Groups), Cheryl E. Abbate Jan 2020

How To Help When It Hurts: Act Individually (And In Groups), Cheryl E. Abbate

Animal Studies Journal

In a recent article, Corey Wrenn argues that in order to adequately address injustices done to animals, we ought to think systemically. Her argument stems from a critique of the individualist approach I employ to resolve a moral dilemma faced by animal sanctuaries, who sometimes must harm some animals to help others. But must systemic critiques of injustice be at odds with individualist approaches? In this paper, I respond to Wrenn by showing how individualist approaches that take seriously the notion of group responsibility can be deployed to solve complicated dilemmas that are products of injustice. Contra Wrenn, I argue …


[Review] After Coetzee: An Anthology Of Animal Fictions. Edited By A. Marie Houser, Faunary Press, 2017. 189 Pp, Wendy Woodward Jan 2020

[Review] After Coetzee: An Anthology Of Animal Fictions. Edited By A. Marie Houser, Faunary Press, 2017. 189 Pp, Wendy Woodward

Animal Studies Journal

[Review] After Coetzee: An Anthology of Animal Fictions. Edited by A. Marie Houser, Faunary Press, 2017. 189 pp.


[Review] Natalie Porter And Ilana Gershon, Editors. Living With Animals: Bonds Across Species. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2018. 266 Pp., Wendy Woodward Jan 2020

[Review] Natalie Porter And Ilana Gershon, Editors. Living With Animals: Bonds Across Species. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2018. 266 Pp., Wendy Woodward

Animal Studies Journal

[Review] Natalie Porter and Ilana Gershon, editors. Living with Animals: Bonds across Species. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2018. 266 pp. Living with Animals, as the dust jacket avers, ‘is a collection of imagined animal guides – a playful look at different human-animal relationships’. The collection has an international range from dogs in Australia, to sacrificial cattle in Madagascar, chimpanzees in West Africa, tamed hyenas in Harar, and returning birds in Buenos Aires. At the same time the reader learns more about animals in processes and places we might take for granted – training service dogs, marketing rescue dogs, introducing …


Animal Studies Journal 2020 9(1): Cover Page, Table Of Contents, Editorial And Contributor Biographies, Melissa Boyde Jan 2020

Animal Studies Journal 2020 9(1): Cover Page, Table Of Contents, Editorial And Contributor Biographies, Melissa Boyde

Animal Studies Journal

Animal Studies Journal 2020 9(1): Cover Page, Table of Contents, Editorial and Contributor Biographies.


Provocation From The Field: A Multispecies Doula Approach To Death And Dying, Kathryn Gillespie Jan 2020

Provocation From The Field: A Multispecies Doula Approach To Death And Dying, Kathryn Gillespie

Animal Studies Journal

Death doulas can help to make meaning in the dying process, to be present for what arises at the end of life, and to move alongside those who are dying and their loved ones. At the end of life, doulas can offer help reflecting on what this life has meant, planning for the coming death, holding space during the active dying process, and grieving the loss of the one who has died. This paper extends a doula approach – typically work done with humans – to death and dying in multispecies contexts. Many other species are routinely rendered killable, disposable, …


'From Here To Everywhere': Foucault, Fonterra And Richie Mccaw (A Cow’S Tale), Chevy Rendell Jan 2020

'From Here To Everywhere': Foucault, Fonterra And Richie Mccaw (A Cow’S Tale), Chevy Rendell

Animal Studies Journal

This research paper attempts to provide a Foucauldian analysis of Fonterra’s television commercial ‘From Here to Everywhere’. With the cooperation of former All Black captain, Richie McCaw, ‘From Here to Everywhere’ is a play of power to construct a certain truth, that the dairy industry is the beating heart (and deliberately not the bountiful udder) of Aotearoa New Zealand’s economic and physical wellbeing. However, the Fonterra-McCaw narrative mystifies the often-violent realities of dairy farming while masquerading as natural certain ideologies, such as carnism, that perpetuate species and gender inequality. The recent Mycoplasma bovis outbreak in New Zealand inserts a measure …