Contemporary Art Commons^™

Tùn-Scene And A-Futurism: Biomythography, Opacity, And Posthuman Imagination, Minglu Du

Masters Theses

Grounded in the author’s position as a Chinese feminist, this thesis examines how East Asian women, as well as East Asian-coded femininity more broadly, are objectified and othered within futurist visual culture in the age of artificial intelligence. Through an engagement with ornamentalism, techno-Orientalism, and posthumanism1 , it argues that the persistent figure of the feminized humanoid cyborg continues to reproduce colonial and patriarchal structures of desire, rendering marginalized bodies as fetishized and violable surfaces. In response, the thesis develops Tùn-Scene, a biomythographic artistic framework and the first experiment in what the author provisionally names A-Futurism. Drawing on Donna Haraway’s …

Jadughar: The House Of Magic, Dhruvi A. Shah

Masters Theses

Jadughar or the House of Magic is what people call a 'museum' in parts of South Asia. The practice of museum making, at its origin, is the act of collecting, preserving, interpreting and representing a culture’s tangible and intangible heritage to make it accessible to diverse audiences. Since the early 19th century such practices have been performed at various kala bhandars (art centers) in India, without the need of a formal or institutional organisation. The British introduced the model of a ‘museum’ in South Asia, with the aim of not only preserving ethnographic collections, but also showcasing their power and …

Menstrual Muses: Art, Storytelling, And The Care-Based Communication Of Menstrual Justice, Burcu Koleli

Masters Theses

Menstrual Muses is an artistic research project comprising a written thesis and a body of work developed across soft sculpture, ceramics, illustration, graphic memoir, digital media, and participatory workshops. The written component operates alongside the studio practice, outlining the project’s theoretical framework, methodology, and context while engaging questions of communication, accessibility, embodiment, and stigma. It situates menstruation within feminist discourse, examining how it has been culturally silenced, regulated, and shaped through systems of power.

The artistic work functions as research materialized through practice, responding to the central question of how my art can facilitate conversations around menstrual justice. It explores …

Until The Ground Breaks, Annie Hu

Masters Theses

Until the Ground Breaks explores the complex relationship between personal memory, embodied experience, and internalized "archival logic." By examining long-term cross-cultural diasporic experiences and the shifting dynamics of family narratives—including the sensory experiences and fading memory of a grandmother, a father's correspondence that acts as a textual record of emotional logic, and the continuous revision of family history—this thesis dissects the psychological tremors that occur when the illusion of a singular, stable memory archive collapses. This research rejects the view of memory as a static container of truth, revealing it instead as a dynamic, unstable, and constantly rewritten living system. …

The Image Falls Apart, Alexa N. Curran

Masters Theses

The Image Falls Apart is a phenomenological account of my collision with Rogier van der Weyden’s The Descent from the Cross (ca. 1435). In an ever-expanding landscape of visual stimuli, how do we make sense of images that are an encounter with the sacred? Of what use to a modern viewer is an altarpiece of the late medieval period that, in its miraculous rendering of each of its human figures, reflects the impending iconophobia of the Protestant Reformation? And what does falling have to do with it? With careful attention to the assembly of bodies in space, this multidisciplinary project, …

Shimmer Methodology: May 2026 Cultural Studies Association Of Australasia, Lola Montgomery

Staff Scholarship - Australia & Dubai

This webinar presents an overview of the contemporary state of creative-practice research and autotheory before introducing Shimmer, an emerging methodological framework developed through creative practice, postgraduate supervision, and reflective inquiry. The presentation argues that while creative-practice research has successfully established creative work as a legitimate form of knowledge production, and autotheory has legitimised lived experience as theoretical material, both traditions leave relatively under-theorised the embodied moment through which insight first emerges.

The significance of the work lies in its contribution to ongoing debates around embodiment, affect, intuition, and knowledge production within creative-practice research. Shimmer proposes a language for understanding …

Public Art And Military Technology At The Mexico-U.S. Border: Disrupting Boundaries On Battlegrounds, Anna Luise Kaunert

Theses and Dissertations

This thesis examines how contemporary artists Rubén Ortiz Torres, Chico MacMurtrie, rafa esparza, and Cassils transformed military technologies into powerful artworks that interrogate the Mexico-U.S. border as a battlefield. Together, their works illuminate militarization and surveillance technologies at the border and the violent enforcement of U.S. immigration policy.

The Southwest Black Artists Collective: Afro-Modern Ecology, Kinship, And Collectivity In The Desert Southwest, Bradley L. Petty

Art History Theses and Dissertations

This thesis examines the Southwest Black Artists Collective (SBAC) as a site of

Afro-diasporic kinship, artistic production, and spatial intervention within the Desert

Southwest. Operating within a region where Black populations are comparatively small

and institutional support is diffuse, SBAC emerges as both a response to and a

reconfiguration of the regional artistic landscape. The Collective constructs an affirming

community through shared artistic practice, exhibitions, and the maintenance of The

Projects/Space in Tucson, Arizona, where public engagement and private creative

exchange coexist.

Drawing on theories of human ecology, this study expands existing frameworks

by introducing the concept of Afro-modern ecology, …

The Collapse Of The New Tendencies: How Did A Movement That Never Existed Cease To Exist, Tonka Protega

MA Theses

This thesis examines the short lifespan of the New  Tendencies. Although the  New Tendencies have gained renewed recognition over the last couple of years, there is still limited research on their final phase. To address this topic, I analyzed the narrative history of the  New Tendencies  , alongside the essays published in the exhibition catalogues. Additionally, I considered the historical and political situation in Croatia during this period, which influenced the manifestations. Ultimately, this thesis argues for the non-existence of the  New Tendencies  as a movement in the history of art and identifies the key reasons that led to its …

Art Heals Chicago: Murals On The South Side Of Xicágo, Brenda Rodriguez

Pomona Senior Theses

Mural making as a collective art form is a tool for healing, resistance, and cultural pride in Black and Brown communities. With my focus being on Mexican American communities on the South Side of Chicago, specifically Pilsen. I make ties to indigenous motifs and the history of Mexican Muralism to show how it has evolved and how murals in the 1960s and 70s were used for healing from violence and the revolution. Murals that include images that reference the Mesoamerican past and preconquest life are a powerful way of reclaiming one’s identity and asserting one's indigeneity in the present and …

Adaptive Compulsion, Amanda A. Santos

Electronic Theses, Projects, and Dissertations

Adaptive

Adjective

Adap.tive ( ə-ˈdap-tiv)

of, relating to, or being a heritable trait that serves a specific function and improves an organism's fitness or survival

Compulsion

Noun

Com.pul.sion (kəm-ˈpəl-shən)

a repetitive behavior or mental act that a person feels driven to perform to alleviate the anxiety and distress caused by an unwanted thought or urge, known as an obsession.

For years we have lived in unprecedented times. From the worldwide quarantine in 2020 resulting from the pandemic, to our current US political crisis. The constant barrage of events is overwhelming and demoralizing.

The work in this gallery is a display …

An Interview With An Instagram Archivist: @404mph Interviews @Onlystarleft, 404mph (On Instagram)

Digital Laboratory: Publisher of Internet Journal

An Interview with an Instagram Archivist: @404MPH Interviews @ONLYSTARLEFT is a dialogue conducted entirely through iMessage, presented as both a publication and a designed artifact. Within this text exchange, the conversation navigates themes of digital preservation, authorship, and self-curation—examining how social media aesthetics transform personal experience into collective memory. @ONLYSTARLEFT reflects on the act of archiving not as static documentation but as a living, participatory practice shaped by the speed and impermanence of online culture. Formally, the project recognizes the iPhone as a cultural mediator—its interface shaping not only how we communicate, but how we perceive and construct value within …

Cartography, Botany, And Violence In The Codex Rodriguez-MondragóN, Maria Davison

Theses and Dissertations

This thesis examines how Sandy Rodriguez deploys the visual language of the Florentine Codex and other sixteenth-century Mesoamerican sources to examine the persisting effects of colonialism on people and land in Mexico-U.S. borderlands in Codex Rodriguez-Mondragón (2017-present), her ongoing series of maps, botanical illustrations, and landscape paintings.

Arts-Based Sustainability: From New York To Malawi, Martha B. Lerski

Publications and Research

Recognizing that libraries serve multiple constituencies and subject areas, this chapter documents and advocates for development of transdisciplinary arts-based research (ABR) and culture-related projects linked to environmental challenges. Libraries contribute collections and spaces, as well as the research of library and information scientists. Libraries are currently among invisible contributors to sustainability planning and services. The chapter will link this invisibility to the value of what visual arts refer to as negative space elements in subjects ranging from traditional ecological knowledge to environmental science. Library collections, projects, and research contribute to education for sustainable development (ESD) as required to achieve the …

An Interactive Walkthrough Of Richard Kostelanetz’S Library, Martin Glick

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

My project utilizes the visual novel game engine Ren’Py to create an embodied virtual walkthrough of Richard Kostelanetz’s personal library. Kostelanetz is a pioneering avante-garde artist, critic, and anthologist whose work spans multiple decades and artistic practices. This interactive experience introduces users to the astounding collection of 25,000 books that Kostelanetz has amassed in Ridgewood, Queens over his decades of publishing avant-garde literature. While scholars might be familiar with his anthologies such as Scenarios: Scripts to Perform (1980) and Texts-Sound Texts (1980), my project allows users to browse through sample pages of his original “Book Art”.

This New Media Object …

Transplant Transplant(Ed) Transplant(Ing), So Jung Yoon

Masters Theses

Boundaries shape our lives and identities. The tangible presence of boundaries becomes a medium for engaging with the world—such as who occupies a space and how, or what tools are deemed valid in a design process. These boundaries aren’t always visible; they’re embedded in systems, habits, and assumptions that shape how we move, create, and are recognized. They extend far beyond fixed geographies and the specific positions we occupy within them.

Transplanting is the process by which things are moved or move across boundaries in hopes of being planted, finding a place to stay. Though it can be a search …

Folds, Bayan Abukiwan

Theses and Dissertations

This thesis uses the fold as an orienting metaphor and material gesture to linger on the minor details of intimacy that are severed by occupation and political violence. Through painting, drawing and ceramics, the work traces the more implicit modes of dehumanization—particularly in relation to Palestine—while engaging the domestic as a site of quiet and complexity. Influenced by artists like Jennifer Packer and Beatriz González, the practice embraces slowness, touch, and opacity to fold the viewer into a haptic encounter with the work.

Piecemeal, Max J. Eisenberg

Theses and Dissertations

Exploring the history of photographic manipulation both inside and outside of the camera from the late 19th century until today. My work plucks out cultural and local signifiers from the state of Florida, and the American South as a whole, and disseminates them using a constructed symbolic vernacular in the form of in-camera collaging on large format film.

Pedro Aceves Mfa Thesis, Pedro M. Aceves

Electronic Theses, Projects, and Dissertations

My Work is about looking at Cruising through a queer decolonial lens. Using multiple mediums such as photo, glass, Augmented reality, and film, I explore these queer histories and aesthetics through not just an anthropological approach but also an artistic epistemological approach weaving together narratives of prehispanic and modern queer Latinidad.

Parody And Mis-Unda-Stendings In Comics Art World: Bridging The Gap With New Criteria, Yannis Koukoulas

SANE journal: Sequential Art Narrative in Education

The word parody and its many cognates such as appropriation, adaptation, pastiche, travesty, forgery, homage, tribute, swipe, etc., have often been at the centre of fierce debates within the traditional Artworld and various criteria have been proposed for the critical evaluation of visual and literary works. In particular, parody as a dominant practice in postmodern art is a concept that is subject to misunderstandings as to its content and meaning. In Comics Artworld, however, within which recontextualizing practices are very common, often with humorous content, the attempt to describe artists' works and intentions by the criteria applied to other arts, …

Artcatalyze Investments: Empowering Art Investment Innovation, Wan Yu Hung

MA Projects

The Art Investment Fund represents an ambitious fusion of art expertise with state-of-the-art Web3 and cryptocurrency technology, poised to revolutionize the landscape of art investment. At its core, the Fund is dedicated to establishing a secure and transparent art investment trading platform that caters to the needs of artists and collectors alike. Anchored by a team of seasoned art advisors, the Fund offers personalized guidance tailored to each client's unique financial goals, ensuring that investment decisions are informed and strategic. Additionally, a cadre of skilled art restorers plays a crucial role in preserving the integrity and enhancing the long-term appreciation …

Theopoetics Prothesis: An Exploration In Faith And Form, Elise Aleman, Elise Aleman

College of Graduate Studies: Theses & Dissertations

My work is rooted in the biblical definition of faith: “Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen” (Hebrews 11:1). Like the Bible’s layered complexity—its patterns, metaphors, and cultural references—faith is not merely intellectual but an active trust in what is unseen. It transcends knowledge, anchoring itself in conviction and hope. This intersection of theology and lived experience is at the core of my practice.

Theopoetics—a framework that fuses theology and artistic expression—shapes my approach, allowing faith to be embodied through form rather than merely explained. Two seemingly distinct bodies of work—one centered …

Raisin Fingers, Sophia Hatzikos

Graduate School of Art Theses

I am a sculptor that uses site reactive interactions, video documentation, and studio-based processes to explore landscape. I investigate my multifaceted relationship of self to my sensorial memory of landscape. Through themes of memory, loss and longing intertwined with my personal connection to water. I identify the intersections of sculpture and landscape seeking ways in which environments shapes decisions in the making process.

Through case studies of two distinct landscapes, Malaki and Tyson, I look at how these environments serve as sources of inspiration and material for experimentation. By identifying the ways in which I researched at each site respectively …

Embodied Visions: Interactive Installations That Reimagine Bodily Presence In Digital Imaging Apparatuses As Shadows, Yunzi Shi

Dartmouth College Master’s Theses

Contextualized within a history of technological development, the evolution of imaging devices and technologies is accompanied by the abstraction of spatial relationships between the body of the observer, the apparatus, and physical reality, which leads to disembodying experiences for the observing subject. Compared with devices and interactive experiences, critical reflection on the epistemological impact of digital imaging devices has less priority in computational imaging and human-computer interaction research. Taking an artistic approach, this thesis describes Embodied Visions, an exhibition featuring three interactive installations exploring the technical infrastructure for imaging and reflecting on the (dis)embodied experiences in the digital age. …

Queerform/Ing, Matthew Solon-Lee Weimer

Art Theses and Dissertations

My artwork is situated within and around vessels and the Queer Homoerotic World and explores sexuality as a Demisexual within them. This is accomplished through the two processes of my creation, Minivague and Queerform/ing: balancing sexual tension and explicit expression, while subverting traditional norms and stereotypes with queerness to distance oneself from stereotypical Gay Art. Altering/emphasizing makes the artwork more romantic, lighter, whimsical, softer, and tender than the figure/s and the situations actually are. The process is also emphasizing what one sees or wants to be seen. The Pink Boy becomes a celebration of intimacy of any form. I discuss …

Fragmented Bodies, Lauren Careese Alexander

Art Theses and Dissertations

Through Memory Webs and fragmented ceramic vessels, I express what it feels like to grow up living in a biracial body. I utilize mixed media to emulate a mixed-race experience. My Memory Webs are fashioned by painting on scraps of canvas and attaching them with crocheted wire and ribbon to speak to how my memory has impacted my identity. My fragmented ceramic vessels are cut up and stitched back together to represent disjointedness and un-belonging. All of my work is contextualized through the novel Frankenstein by Mary Shelley and what the Monster may represent for people of color. I also …

A Taste For The Distasteful: The Aesthetics Of Gore In The Giallo And Horror Films Of Mario Bava, Thais Casado Bignardi-Engstrom

Theses and Dissertations

This thesis analyzes the Italian experience with horror in cinema in both psychoanalytic feminist and cognitive Marxist critical film theories through a study of visual renderings of excessive violence and sex in gothic and thrillers known as giallo films created by the film director Mario Bava. This is an art historical study that looks at Bava’s work against the Italian cultural landscape in the post war period.

In A State Of Becoming, Benjamin Conley

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The artist discusses his Master of Fine Arts exhibition titled, In a State of Becoming. The exhibition was on view at the Tipton Gallery in downtown Johnson City, TN from February 26 March 8, 2024. In a State of Becoming showcased three large scale paintings, five multimedia prints, two sculptural installations, and a video projection installation. Conley's thesis research and current artistic practice revolve around the interfaces, connections, and relationships of humans and animals. Conley explicitly uses language like "animal" to describe "non-human animals" in his work's context. The exhibited works focused primarily on how the artist and/or the viewer …

Without Us There Is No Britain: Black British Photography And Film Networks, 1950-1989, Maria T. Quinata

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This dissertation tracks three moments from 1950 to 1989, when images were put to work by Black photographers and filmmakers to stake individual and communal claims to Britain and Britishness: first, through the emergence of photographic portraiture taken in domestic living spaces during the 1950s to 1970s; second, through the Black Panther Movement and their use of photography in the late 1960s to mid 1970s, and last, with the efflorescence of Black film and video collectives in the 1980s. At each of these moments, I attend to the simultaneous production, negotiation, and co-mingling of new social identities that were diasporic, …

Ripe Spoils, Yan Cynthia Chen

Theses and Dissertations

Chen’s practice primarily focus on sculptures and installation. She explores the interplay between the idea of nature and the constructed environment, by examining how language informs what we know. The central thesis, "Ripe Spoils", employs citrus fruits as symbols for bodily experiences and personal identity, investigating their cultural and historical significance. Her sculptures summon the qualities and embedded meanings in materials like paper pulp and clay, wax and citrus fruits, often resulting in abstracted forms evocative of the human body. This thesis paper and exhibition reflect on themes like mortality and the essence of self.

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