Art Practice Commons^™

From Margins To Museums: Tracing The Evolution Of Representation For Contemporary African Artists In The United States, Victoria Mouraux Durand-Ruel

Master's Theses

This thesis examines the impact of the Black Lives Matter movement on the art community in the United States and the evolution of representation for Contemporary African artists. By analyzing the careers and artistic contributions of Omar Ba, Toyin Ojih Odutola, and Njideka Akunyili Crosby, the study explores the concept of artistic agency according to which African artists have more control over the production and distribution of their works.

The research begins with a comprehensive literature review, investigating the historical contexts that have shaped the art landscape, including the impact of colonization, decolonization, and globalization. The study reveals how these …

Living In Untranslatability--Performance Art In China And Usa, Ziyun Ma

Masters Theses

This thesis embodies discontinuities in performance art and its non-equivalent Chinese term “行 为艺术” between language and cultural context into a migrating journey. A comparative analysis on the disciplinary history of performance art studies in the US and China laid a foundation in exploring the dynamics of marginality in two contexts. Extracting from the narrative mechanism and body view of Chinese performance art, I demonstrate how the philosophy of living (生) inspired many artistic creation, which also echoes my research journey. And from our mutual living experience, I pose the concept of constructive untranslatability that applies positionality and situated knowledge …

Art Of Aging – A Portraiture Study, Alaina Mann

Theses/Capstones/Creative Projects

The process of aging can be viewed through different lenses within our society. In the past, scientists and medical professionals performed various studies to better understand and analyze different facets of aging, medicine, and health in general. Historically the arts have reflected multiple aspects of medicine and treatments while more recently, the arts have been used in a research capacity to provide different ways to represent illness, suffering, and care. This study used art-based research methods and portraiture to gather qualitative observations on the older populations within our community. Data collected included drawings, a field journal, and interviews. This study …

How I Came To Jam With The Angels Of The Dirty South: A Journey Into Art And Art Education, Miki Skak

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

This paper dives into my personal journey from a far-left activist youth into becoming an artist. It explains how a poet saw artistic potential within me, introduced me to the world of art and eventually art education. I reflect on the art education I have received from several different art schools and how they try to adapt to the demands of the contemporary art world that has been in a constant condition of reshaping itself since Marcel Duchamp’s readymade. As an artist who is less focused on the techniques of traditional artistic mediums, I investigate how the state of art …

Standing On The Edge Of A Dream, Parto Ahmadpour Mobarake

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Standing On the Edge of a Dream delves into the intricate tapestry of lived experiences shaped by relocation, emphasizing the nuanced space that exists between reality and imagination. As an individual who has undergone the transformative journey of immigration, I recognize that the concept of relocation is like standing on the edge of a dream. This notion becomes a living structure, intricately woven with threads from our past, present, and future. My artistic exploration extends beyond my artworks, yet it remains deeply rooted in my personal narratives. The artworks in the exhibition continue to draw inspiration from personal memories and …

Where Will I Be From, Melissa Loney

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Where Will I Be From is an exhibition and film centered around the intersections of generational grief and technology. I documented domestic locations connected to my family across the Great Plains. This on-site photo documentation was then used to create photogrammetric renderings of these locations and their structures, recorded in the open-source CAD software Blender. Together, these familial places, separated by hundreds of miles, were digitally compiled to make one collective world. The aesthetic of this project connects the visual languages of Southern Gothic and Low-Poly Video games. The Gothic nature exposes an isolated decaying presence within a rural landscape. …

Material World, Nicole Weldy

All Theses

My thesis, Material World, delves into the use of the crochet unit as a construction technique for building forms. Through this, I aim to organize different materials in a way that responds to the challenges posed by the physical world. My artistic process is centered around honoring the inherent qualities of thread and uses these qualities to create form, lightness, and linearity. At the same time, I remain receptive to transformative processes such as combining three-dimensional (3D) printed lines and lace stiffener to push the boundaries of what thread can do. By combining manual craftsmanship with technology materialized as …

The Public Muse In Congress: The Punctuation Of American Federal Arts Policy, Elizabeth Deichmann

Dissertations

In 1989, American federal arts policy changed suddenly and drastically when the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) gained unprecedented attention in Congress for controversial grant awards that supported two visual artists. Prior to this, federal arts policy was an insulated subsystem run by experts applying high art aesthetic standards to grantmaking. Informed by punctuated-equilibrium theory (PET), this investigation of congressional rhetoric shows that Republican policy entrepreneurs during this time effectively set a new, more negative tone about federal arts policy by harnessing conservative culture wars messages. The change in tone preceded federal arts policy’s arrival on the broader congressional …

Online News Portrayal During The Covid-19 Health Crisis And Journalism's Role In Misinformation In The U.S., Michou Ducilon

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

The COVID-19 pandemic has brought a wealth of new information regarding the virus's origin and treatment. Regrettably, the vast amount of online information has resulted in the proliferation of misinformation, as the World Health Organization reported. To investigate whether journalists may have contributed to this problem, a qualitative analysis was conducted on 15 news articles from top-tier media outlets. Using NVivo software, the articles were analyzed to identify linguistic words and visuals that fell into coding categories based on Behrendt's (2008) contextual analysis for evaluating text. Each article was then coded again to identify common themes. During this process, new …

A Community Of Knots, Katherine Mahler

MFA in Visual Arts Theses

In her 1965 essay On Weaving, the artist Anni Albers stated, “As it is possible to go from any place to any other, so also, starting from a defined and specialized field, can one arrive at a realization of ever-extending relationships. Thus tangential subjects come into view. The thoughts, however, can, I believe, be traced back to the event of a thread” (Albers XI). A thread is the beginning of coming into being. In this paper, I will discuss the lines of my work from the beginning of the program, exploring mapping to how my work as a teacher …

Overcoming The Inner Critic: The Therapeutic Use Of Self-Portraits With Older Adults, Brenda Echeverry

Expressive Therapies Capstone Theses

Older adults are a growing and vulnerable population who experience discriminatory practices that impact their access to equitable housing, employment, and healthcare which was made even more obvious during the Coronavirus pandemic in the United States. A community engagement project was developed and facilitated by the writer to support older adults with the psychological effects of surviving the pandemic. This project also helped to increase accessibility to expressive arts therapy in the writer’s local community. Expressive arts therapy is an effective and accessible method to support mental health and wellness for people of all ages. Engagement with the arts helps …

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 …

Doc/U/Ment: Affinities In 20th And 21st-Century Documental Poetics, Katherine Payne

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This dissertation presents, analyzes, and builds on the existing literary genealogy of documental poetry. In 2020 Michael Leong proposed the term documental poetry to describe the turn toward source materials in 21^st-century North American poetry, seen in longform research-based poems that explicitly incorporate documentation and seek to intervene in cultural memory. Using Ludwig Wittgenstein’s concept of family resemblance, I argue that there are clear affinities between 21^st-century poets and their 20^th-century literary forerunners, also that an expansion of the scope of documental poetics is needed. The three nodes of connection I examine are works …

Examining Our Relationship With Death: A Participatory Art Project, Lia A. Davido

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Death is a fact of life, yet researchers such as Caitlin Doughty, Todd Harra, Ernest Becker, and others, have found that people deem death a taboo topic of conversation. Doughty herself started a social movement, death positivity, to encourage this taboo to be broken, and to normalize talking about death. However these researchers published their findings in the early to mid 2010’s, before a major pandemic made death a more common occurrence for people. Inspired by previous researchers' experiences, this project asks the question: How do people feel about death now, and can socially engaged art create a space where …

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 …

Building Community Through Creativity & Social Practice Arts, Saira Siddiqui

Creativity and Change Leadership Graduate Student Master's Projects

Social practice art is an artistic genre aimed to positively affect communities by addressing social and political change. Social practice art is collaborative, participatory, and involves people and places to help address these changes. The focus of this master’s project is to engage in a deeper understanding of how creativity and change leadership plays a role in the process of a social practice artist, and their pursuit to use art, culture, and creativity to connect people to each other and their environments. The outcomes of the project include insights into how creativity can be used in action to manage a …

Exploring High School Students’ Perceptions Of The Influence Of Fine Arts Education On Academic Achievement, Samantha Fields

Doctor of Education in Teacher Leadership Dissertations

This qualitative study aims to explore student perceptions of fine arts exposure on academic achievement in a southwestern Georgia high school. The study focuses specifically on exposure time and how it affects students academically. Qualitative research methods were used for this investigation. Information was collected through questionnaires, interviews, and artifacts analysis to better understand student perceptions of how fine arts education impacts their personal growth and academic success. This study’s findings provide insights about discovering students’ perceptions of fine arts exposure in relation to personal academic achievement. The results of this investigation can help educate stakeholders and policymakers as they …

Kole, Isaiah Aladejobi

Masters Theses

This project focuses on the development of building blocks influenced by the architecture and design styles of Yoruba culture and Washington DC. These building blocks aim to provide an educational and culturally enriching experience for individuals of all ages, with a particular focus on youth.

By combining the traditional design elements of Yoruba architecture with the modern urban aesthetic of Washington DC, the building blocks offer a unique blend of cultural influences for children and adults to explore. Through hands-on building activities, users can engage with the cultural heritage of these two regions, while also developing important skills such as …

In A Condition Of No Light, Alana Perino

Masters Theses

In a Condition of No Light is an autofictional investigation into lineages of familial domesticity. The performances therein circumnavigate one family in one domestic environment, yet are in dialogue with repertoires learned and rehearsed within legacies of myth, literature, theater, film, music, and image; as well as through the otherwise untraceability of embodied memory and inherited trauma. The methodologies used are primarily photographic but also encompass practices reaching towards sculpture, installation, and performance. The line of questioning reserved for this inquiry is how a home, its objects, and inhabitants generate, spacialize, and embody the conditions of wealth, whiteness, and gender. …

Vanitas, Sae Jung Oh

Masters Theses

Vanitas is a tribute to the missing pieces within the reconstruction of human memory, places, and data. It is a cartography of words, including home, apartment complex, reconstruction, mourning, archive, memory, memorialization, a god within, collective memory, photogrammetry, cyberspace, omnipresence, meandering, heterotopia, alleyway, construction site, and mirror. I invite readers to meander in the map of relations and be lost in the topography. What can you discover when you meander? What happens when you renounce being a subject and become an object seamlessly blended into the topography?

Cyberflesh: The Me I'Ve Made For You, Jordan Metz

Masters Theses

This thesis deals with the impact of digital life on individuals by examining how real things become virtual bodies of information. Throughout this text, I weave key theoretical and literary references between my own thoughts and experiences which led to the work that appears in this book. I find it useful to attend to the spaces in between entities, theories, and technolo- gies. In these undefined spaces lies the spiritual dimension of media, the everyday magic that makes digital life possible. These ‘in-betweens’ are the site of transcendence granted by technology. In my practice, I’ve learned that things have a …

Curiosity Beyond The Hidden, Yi Young Kim

Masters Theses

What lies beneath the surface of vessels? This captivating thesis explores the hidden world within, drawing inspiration from traditional Korean ceramics and employing coil-built sculptures. By focusing on the hollowness of vessels, this study unveils their profound interconnectedness and inherent uniqueness.

Through spontaneous stacking of claylike glazes and textured elements, the artwork reveals mysterious processes and transformations within these vessels. Exposing the intricacies of hollow spaces, viewers are invited to contemplate the mesmerizing realms concealed within.

Intertwining elements of Korean heritagewith intricate structures, this artistic endeavor

sheds light on the hidden and challenges preconceived notions of everyday existence. The work …

New Mapping, Dowon Yoo

Masters Theses

Tools determine the shape of most of the worlds that are manufactured or measured. Taking the Earth as an example, territory is shaped and transformed by the tools of the earth's plate movement, the sea, and humans. A map, a recognized territory, is represented through numerical instruments, mathematical formulas, and visual devices such as lenses.

The instrumental perspective is one of the powerful lenses that will work effectively into the past, present, and future. So I started to apply an instrumental perspective to digital space. Digital space which is Non-physical has become one of the most important worlds for contemporary …

Destined Failure, Chengjun Pan

Masters Theses

I attempt to examine the complex structure of human communication, explaining why it is bound to fail. By reproducing experienceable phenomena, I demonstrate how they can expose communication structure and reveal the limitations of our perception and symbolization.I divide the process of communication into six stages: input, detection, symbolization, dictionary, interpretation, and output. In this thesis, I examine the flaws and challenges that arise in the first five stages. I argue that reception acts as a filter and that understanding relies on a symbolic system that is full of redundancies. Therefore, every interpretation is destined to be a deviation.

Describe The City You Live In, Jingfei Hu

Masters Theses

I dive into the fields: frequency (sound), wavelengths (light), shapes (conversation): they build connections. What is action without reflection? Now I’m a city drifter. Through art making and dialogue I try to drop the anchor into the futuristic turbulent ocean (of society, speed, and the status quo ). Did I drop it? Not sure. I grew up in the most fast- paced city in China, Shenzhen. I feel pressured there. Do I feel that pressure here? of a precarious, unpredictable future? These questions push me out of the turbulent ocean to grab the present.

There are three stages of time: …

To Melt, Huanzhe Hu

Masters Theses

This thesis focuses on the need for a reevaluation of the relationship between humans and nature in the face of the current ecological crisis. The author argues that the dominant anthropocentric orientation, which sees nature as a resource to be exploited for human benefit, has led to over extraction and resource abuse, disrupting the balance of ecosystems. Instead, the author suggests adopting an ethical framework based on mutual understanding and appreciation, breaking the "hunter's gaze" and fostering empathy for non-human life forms. This thesis also explores the potential for new forms of communication and engagement with nature, such as through …

Coast To Coast, Zeyuan Ren

Masters Theses

This essay contains four bodies of work created during my graduate studies, all of which take place on either the West or East coasts, incorporating performance, photography, and video. In the first half of the paper, I examine how the theme of “displacement” is established in my initial works, and highlight the significance of the state of “being displaced” in my process of imaging and (re)understanding the ocean.

At the core of the thesis, I investigate the wave-piloting of Marshall Islanders and a particular cartographic model, the “stick chart,” which is a mnemonic device embedded with the voyager's somatic memories, …

Destination Unknown, Dongheng Yang

Masters Theses

Since the end of my undergrad years, I’ve been noticing my increasing tendency to not want to talk much about my work. What is it that lingers inside of me behind such silence? What story could one possibly talk about his studio practice, when he has little to say? Well, this thesis documents the thoughts behind this silence, which, I have to admit, have fueled my works in the past two years. I investigate postmodern phenomena and literary analysis on pop culture in East Asia, including hikikomori and decisionism, to better understand myself and the world around me. Constantly faced …

Iteration One, Julian Suver

Masters Theses

In the fashion world, companies put a lot of effort towards classifying their products as luxury to the consumer. The age of social media has aggrandized collaborations with famous artists, endorsements by celebrities and even the appointment of pop stars as directors of the biggest fashion houses in the world, as if this makes the clothing better. I can't help but question what luxury actually means when you strip away marketing and if this status can be given or taken away. If a silk dress gets irreparably stained or ripped is it still luxury? Is an old band T-shirt found …

From John Street To Union, Andrew Shea

Masters Theses

I have been making paintings constructed loosely from my experience of walking about one mile each morning from my apartment in Fox Point to my studio in downtown Providence, and of walking back each night. My goal is to rediscover the feeling of these outdoor places—their lights, atmospheres, colors, and topographies—through the process of painting inside the studio. As such, the visual representations of these paintings are not straight-forward and objective, but oblique and affective.

I hope that these works draw one’s attention to the idiosyncrasies of natural life and to the particularities of weather. I want the paintings to …