Art and Design Commons^™

Body/Mind:Matter, Mary Ellen Ratcliff

LSU Master's Theses

Body/Mind:Matter presents the unfiltered experiences of living in a period of momentous instability. Three life-sized figurative sculptures stage my emotional journey towards mindfulness as a direct response to the pandemic and my growing concern for our collective future. A winding network of crocheted yarns and growing vines interweave the troubled figures to signify our complex dependencies upon one another and our environment.

The condition of the encumbered bodies is a result of the worried mind. Revitalized matter proposes reconciliation by introducing a sense of hope; decaying surfaces reveal new life; fused wires hold up under immense pressure; and soft woven …

Behind The Plexi, Janina E. Martinez-Fields

Theses

I am a realistic figurative painter focusing on culture, family, friends and identity. Throughout my life I have found little representation for artists who are women and less for women of color, and emphasized this topic through my art. I incorporated the struggles experienced through this past year's pandemic as an added layer of obstacles for women in the creative industry. I combined two surfaces; wood to represent life and plexiglass to represent how we have protected ourselves through separation. I use vibrant acrylic colors on both the wood and plexiglass layers to represent the moods, professions and activities of …

Fracture Patterns: Communicating The Surreal Through Dance Film, Chloe C. Lesh

Scripps Senior Theses

This thesis project and its associated dance film were created in a surrealistic time period initiated by the pandemic. The resulting everyday surrealism ignited my interest within dreams, nightmares, and surreality[1], and how these cerebral and psychological experiences translate to physiological responses and movement. My dance film fracture is the manifestation of these themes. The film presents surrealistic imagery in an abstracted narrative and connects to personal struggles with surreality brought on by the pandemic. The movement, as well as the rationale for the choreographic, filming, and editing choices are explained. Dance films by Neels Castillon and …

Reimagining Abandoned Community Space In A Post-Pandemic Environment, Julia Drooff

Scripps Senior Theses

Earlier this year, the Covid-19 pandemic accelerated the demise of the Great American Mall by forcing temporary and permanent closures across the country. The low-end malls that remain are dealing with crippling debt and the closing of key department stores like JC Penney and Neiman Marcus[1]. With only super-luxury malls thriving, many of the standard malls set up in the eighties are just abandoned parts of a community. So, what should happen to these abandoned malls? And what role does that space now play in the post-pandemic community? Since malls began to shut-down pre-Covid-19 did the need for …