Dissertations / Theses on the topic 'Artists and museums Australia'
To see the other types of publications on this topic, follow the link: Artists and museums Australia.
Create a spot-on reference in APA, MLA, Chicago, Harvard, and other styles
Consult the top 50 dissertations / theses for your research on the topic 'Artists and museums Australia.'
Next to every source in the list of references, there is an 'Add to bibliography' button. Press on it, and we will generate automatically the bibliographic reference to the chosen work in the citation style you need: APA, MLA, Harvard, Chicago, Vancouver, etc.
You can also download the full text of the academic publication as pdf and read online its abstract whenever available in the metadata.
Browse dissertations / theses on a wide variety of disciplines and organise your bibliography correctly.
1
Mutch, Hollis Hafertepe Kenneth. "Institutional critique artists focus on museological issues /." Waco, Tex. : Baylor University, 2008. http://hdl.handle.net/2104/5285.
Full text
2
Adams, Eleanor. "Towards sustainability indicators for museums in Australia." [Adelaide] : Collections Council of Australia, 2009. http://www.collectionscouncil.com.au/Portals/0/Sustainability_indicators_report_by_Eleanor_Adams_11January2010.pdf.
Full textAbstract:
Thesis (M.A.)--University of Adelaide, 2009.Title from PDF t.p., viewed 20 Jan., 2010. "Published online by the Collections Council of Australia Ltd." Submitted in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts in Curatorial and Museum Studies to the Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences, University of Adelaide. Includes bibliographical references.
3
Arrowsmith, Rupert Richard. "A British museum era : modernist artists and authors in London's museums, 1905-1918." Thesis, University of Oxford, 2007. https://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.486968.
Full textAbstract:
This study considers the role of London's museums - especially the British Museum - as conduits for the delivery of extra-European visual art to the city's avant-garde during the years preceding World War One. It makes use of documents from the archives of the British Museum, the British Library, the Tate Gallery, the V&A, and the Royal Institute of British Architects - many of which have never before been quoted from or published - to show that the early modernist sculpture of Jacob Epstein, Henri Gaudier-Brzeska and Eric Gill; the philosophy of T.E. Hulme; and the poetic imagery of Ezra Pound, were all decisively shaped by a conscious adaptation of aesthetic concepts and technical approaches from exhibits at the above institutions. For the first time, Epstein is conclusively shown to have based his 1907-8 figures for the British Medical Association - traditionally regarded as London's earliest examples of modernist sculpture - upon Indian temple carvings displayed at the British Museum. New evidence is presented indicating that the sculptor's subsequent tours of the capital's Assyrian, Egyptian, African and Oceanic collections in the company of Gill, Gaudier and Hulme are what suggested many of the aesthetic characteristics of pre-war modernism in Britain. A reassessment of Pound's friendship with the curator and poet Laurence Binyon reveals a previously unsuspected link between Pound's first identifiably modernist poems and the Japanese lIkfyo-e woodblock prints available via the British Museum's exclusive Print Room. Important new evidence from the Museum's own archives and from those of the British Library is used to overturn previous hypotheses about Pound's early engagement with the visual cultures of eastern Asia in general - an engagement that would continue to affect his poetic imagery even as late as the final cantos.
4
Alvarez, Veronica. "Art Museums and Latino English Learners| Teaching Artists in the K-8 Classroom." Thesis, Loyola Marymount University, 2018. http://pqdtopen.proquest.com/#viewpdf?dispub=10935081.
Full textAbstract:
Latino English learners (ELs), among the largest student population in the United States K-12 school system, continue to lag behind their English-proficient peers. They also tend to attend segregated schools, have less-qualified teachers, and lack access to rigorous curriculum, including the arts. Museum education departments have increasingly sought to fill the gap in arts education for underserved populations. This mixed methods study explored the degree to which teaching artists (TAs) from a large metropolitan museum are effectively addressing the art education needs of Latino ELs. The dissertation study occured in two phases. Phase 1 included quantitative analysis of observations of the TAs using the numeric components and ancedotal evidence of the Observation Protocol for Academic Literacies. Phase 2 consisted of semi-structured interviews with the participants. Findings of the study indicate that while TAs can improve instruction in terms of providing materials of students’ native langauge and providing opportunities to transfer skills between their primary and the target language, they nevertheless use numerous strategies for effective English language instruction. This can inform museum education departments on effective teaching practices of ELs, an area of study that has almost no scholarship.
5
Dalgleish, S. H. R. "'Utopia' redefined : Aboriginal women artists in the Central Desert of Australia." Thesis, University of East Anglia, 2000. http://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.365051.
Full text
6
Weston, Neville. "The professional training of artists in Australia, 1861-1963, with special reference to the South Australian model /." Title page, contents and abstract only, 1991. http://web4.library.adelaide.edu.au/theses/09PH/09phw535.pdf.
Full text
7
Goldwhite, Phil. "Frames ate the art, frames are the art, the camera is the art, the text is the art, the thing is the art, art is the art /." Online version of thesis, 1995. http://hdl.handle.net/1850/12203.
Full text
8
Parsons, Rachael Nerrada. "Virion : new media and the development of the discursive museum." Thesis, Queensland University of Technology, 2010. https://eprints.qut.edu.au/44089/1/Rachael_Parsons_Thesis.pdf.
Full textAbstract:
The historical rhetoric established with the very first public art museums declared that the purpose of such institutions was to provide a space where art could be accessible to all citizens. However contrary to this aim, studies show that art museums are one of the least accessed cultural institutions in the western world. The prevailing consensus for this can be attributed to the perception that museums are elitist, irrelevant and restricted to a small and privileged group. The focus of this research project is to address the issues that lead to these perceptions, and to identify possible curatorial strategies to encourage greater access to, and participation in the visual arts. This will be done through designing and curating an open submission exhibition that utilises new media technologies to increase access and dialogue between artists and audiences. This is part of a hybrid practice-based methodology that also includes scholarly research to critically investigate a number of historical and contemporary theories concerned with public museums and approaches to curatorial practice. This research will culminate in the development of Virion, an Internet based exhibition that aims to develop a curatorial model that facilitates open and democratic participation in arts practice from a diverse public audience.
9
Webber, Susan, and n/a. "House museums as sites of memory." University of Canberra. Built & Cultural Environment, 2005. http://erl.canberra.edu.au./public/adt-AUC20080925.100449.
Full textAbstract:
Houses and the objects within them stand as tangible symbols of human memory. Some
memories are created unconsciously in day-to-day living; others are consciously attached
to objects that are cherished as symbols of other places, relatives and friends. Memories
may seem to be lost until they are rediscovered in moment of involuntary recall, triggered
by an object, a smell or taste.
The purpose of this research project is to investigate the memory experiences of
visitors to a house museum; what they do with those experiences and how important they
are to them.
Forty adult visitors to Calthorpes' House in the ACT were interviewed using the
focused interview technique with a framework of questions that allowed for a
conversational style and additional questions. The interviews were recorded and later
transcribed.
The results showed that all visitors reported experiencing memories during their
visit to Calthorpes' House. Many people found those experiences enjoyable and wanted
to share them with others.
These findings are important because they can inform the set-up, interpretation
and publicity of house museums in ways which will attract new visitors and help to
engage with visitors' interests when they visit house museums.
10
Gore, James Michael. "Representations of history and nation in museums in Australia and Aotearoa New Zealand : the National Museum of Australia and the Museum of New Zealand, Te Papa Tongarewa /." [Australia] : J. Gore, 2002. http://eprints.unimelb.edu.au/archive/00000320.
Full text
11
Caines, Rebecca English Media & Performing Arts Faculty of Arts & Social Sciences UNSW. "Troubling spaces: The politics of ???New??? community-based guerrilla performance in Australia." Awarded by:University of New South Wales, 2008. http://handle.unsw.edu.au/1959.4/36750.
Full textAbstract:
This thesis examines the politics of twenty-first century ???guerrilla??? performance. It historicises site-specific, political performance by examining ???guerrilla??? art forms from the 1960s to the present. It argues that recent community-based, site-specific performance events can be seen as a ???new??? type of guerrilla work, as they utilise techniques which challenge public space, authorship and control without resorting to traditional guerrilla forms of didactic street protest. The author establishes two main political tactics of the community-based guerrilla artist. The first is the utilisation of a problematised definition of ???community??? and the second is an understanding of physical, conceptual and experiential ???space??? as open to intervention. Community-based performance and site-specific art practices are investigated and space and community are placed into critical theoretical frameworks using post-structural and spatiality theory. The author then argues that post-structured communities which are based on an ethics of difference can trouble and create site, conceptual space and place (site/concept/place) through contemporary guerrilla performance events. Three examples of community-based guerrilla performance in Australia are examined. The first case study explores Western Sydney based Urban Theatre Projects and their 1997 performance event TrackWork. The second focuses on community-based hip-hop artist Morganics and his facilitation of two hip-hop tracks Down River and The Block in 2001. The third considers US theatre director Peter Sellars??? problematic curation of the 2002 Adelaide Festival of the Arts. In all three case studies, guerrilla artists are shown working with post-structured communities to challenge and trouble site/concept/place in order to improve the lives of their participants and audiences. This thesis proposes new post-structural frameworks for the powerful presence of community and site in performance events, thus contributing to performance and cultural studies and to the emerging field of community-based performance scholarship.
12
Robins, Claire. "How did the reticent object become so obliging? : artists' interventions as interpretive strategies in galleries and museums." Thesis, University College London (University of London), 2010. http://discovery.ucl.ac.uk/10019933/.
Full textAbstract:
This is a study about knowledge/power in galleries and museums, contested and reconfigured by a genre of artworks, referred to as Artists' Interventions. Such artworks, their intended functions, and pedagogic uses are the locus of the study. I define galleries and museums as inherently pedagogic institutions, which have historically constructed and disseminated dominant systems of value. In order to examine in what ways these values have been reconfigured through Artists' Interventions, I undertake a historiography of the role of the gallery and museum. In defining interventions, I differentiate between interventionist artworks that disrupt and contest the 'normative' or dominant discourse of galleries and museums, and artworks that support and confirm established interpretations of art and artefacts, and focus attention on the former. I propose art-historical predecessors for Artists' Interventions and situate contemporary initiatives in relation to disruptive, dialogic and parodic methodologies. These are more closely examined in a central case study, a practice-based aspect of the thesis in which I make my own intervention, An Elite Experience for Everyone, performed and exhibited at the William Morris Gallery, London (2005). Where Artists' Interventions have emerged against a backdrop of dominant regulatory and divisionary discourse their disruptive and parodic strategies re-establish the museum as a discursive forum. However, the trope of disruption and dialogue has recently been accommodated within curatorial and pedagogic initiatives. Only the trickster is allowed to evade this assimilation.
13
Whitley, Zoe. "Against a sharp white background : dialogic and exhibitionary practices of Black contemporary artists and curators in art museums." Thesis, University of Central Lancashire, 2018. http://clok.uclan.ac.uk/23580/.
Full textAbstract:
This research seeks to better understand how Black artists experience the mainstream art museum. The thesis makes an original contribution to scholarship on curating contemporary art through qualitative analysis of subjective approaches to art museum space. It makes evident responses to institutionalised systems of address. Foundational in establishing this action research methodology (Lewin 1946; Carr & Kemmis 1986) are the dialogic frameworks provided by the theories of Mikhail Bahktin (1975), Edouard Glissant (1997), and chiefly the writing of Zora Neale Hurston (1929). It concludes that art museums can become sites of dialogic exchange (Bennett, 2006) for those who have been traditionally excluded from such spaces, though the means may be other than those formally sanctioned by the institution. Examining racial difference in museological and curatorial spheres potentially allows for multiple dialogues, referred to by Bakhtin as ‘polyphony.’ Interviews with fourteen international artists and curators suggest that critical debate around the racialisation of museum space has progressed relatively little since the 1990s, with identity politics and institutional critique having fallen out of favour in contemporary museum discourse (Bishop 2012, Haq 2014). Indeed, recent academic research into race and the art museum tends to focus on the past (Cooks 2011, Cahan 2016) or artists’ continued lack of visibility (Chambers 2015). While museum-centred research interrogates the relationship between audience and museum space (McClellan 2003; Karp et al. 2006; Bourriaud 1998; Kester 2011), little consideration has been dedicated to Black contemporary artists’ physical presence in art museums. As a critical paratext to curatorial projectsThe Shadows Took Shape and In Black and White which I co-authored, this study examines Black artists’ roles as uniquely informed generators of address (speakers) and respondents within the art museum. Given the insular and highly specialised body of curatorial writing (Hoffmann 2013; Lind 2010; Obrist 2008; Martinon & Rogoff 2015), it is therefore proposed that studying modes of Black curatorial and artistic address can ultimately yield new translations for contemporary museum-going publics.
14
Cregg, Shannon Thacker. "Collaboration and Connection: An Action Research Study on Inclusive Art Museum Programming." The Ohio State University, 2020. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=osu1587412917785129.
Full text
15
Lenz, Elsa. "COMMUNITY CONNECTIONS: OPENING RELATIONAL AND DIALOGICAL SPACE IN ARTS ORGANIZATIONS THROUGH COMMUNITY OUTREACH." Thesis, Tucson, Arizona : University of Arizona, 2005. http://etd.library.arizona.edu/etd/GetFileServlet?file=file:///data1/pdf/etd/azu%5Fetd%5F1139%5F1%5Fm.pdf&type=application/pdf.
Full text
16
Lemoine, April J. Williams Stephen L. "Repatriation of cultural property in museums a balance of values and national agendas /." Waco, Tex. : Baylor University, 2007. http://hdl.handle.net/2104/5073.
Full text
17
Fernandez, Eva. "Collaboration, demystification, Rea-historiography : the reclamation of the black body by contemporary indigenous female photo-media artists." Thesis, Edith Cowan University, Research Online, Perth, Western Australia, 2002. https://ro.ecu.edu.au/theses/741.
Full textAbstract:
This thesis examines the reclamation of the 'Blak' body by Indigenous female photo-media artists. The discussion will begin with an examination of photographic representatiors of Indigenous people by the colonising culture and their construction of 'Aboriginality'. The thesis will look at the introduction of Aboriginal artists to the medium of photography and their chronological movement through the decades This will begin with a documentary style approach in the 1960s to an intimate exploration of identity that came into prominence in the 1980s with an explosion of young urban photomedia artists, continuing into the 1990s and beyond. I will be examining the works of four contemporary female artists and the impetus behind their work. The three main artists whose works will be examined are Brenda L. Croft, Destiny Deacon and Rea all of whom have dealt with issues of representation of the 'Blak female body, gender and reclamation of identity. The thesis will examine the works of these artists in relation to the history of representation by the dominant culture. Chapter 6 will look at a new emerging artist, Dianne Jones, who is looking at similar issues as the artists mentioned. This continuing critique of representation by Jones is testimony of the prevailing issues concerning Aboriginal representation
18
McCormack, Bernadette. "Blockbustering Australian style: Evolution of the blockbuster exhibition in Australian museums." Thesis, Queensland University of Technology, 2020. https://eprints.qut.edu.au/200164/1/Bernadette_McCormack_Thesis.pdf.
Full textAbstract:
This research critically evaluates the development of the blockbuster exhibition within an Australian museum context. Drawing on semi-structured interviews, reflective practice, and critical historiography, this research argues that current iterations of the blockbuster genre have given rise to a new ecology of 'attractor' exhibitions that are fundamental to visitor engagement strategies in the 21st century Australian museum. These findings are then operationalised in a practical field guide for the implementation of blockbuster exhibitions, providing new knowledge for the Australian museum practitioner to employ in contemporary industry practice.
19
Kim, Seong Eun. "Artists' intervention in 'universal' museums as traced through the Victoria and Albert Museum, the British Museum and the Pitt Rivers Museum." Thesis, University of Oxford, 2009. http://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.508580.
Full text
20
McCarron, Robyn Janelle. "Performing arts and regional communities : the case of Bunbury, Western Australia /." Access via Murdoch University Digital Theses Project, 2004. http://wwwlib.murdoch.edu.au/adt/browse/view/adt-MU20050501.153348.
Full text
21
Smith, Charlotte H. F. "The house enshrined : great man and social history house museums in the United States and Australia /." Online version, 2002. http://bibpurl.oclc.org/web/24545.
Full text
22
Thomson, Jonathan Wyville. "From aestheticism to the modern movement: Whistler, the artists Colony of St. lves and Australia, 1884-1910." Thesis, The University of Hong Kong (Pokfulam, Hong Kong), 2003. http://hub.hku.hk/bib/B29293479.
Full text
23
Coward, Ann Art History & Theory UNSW. "Museums and Australia???s Greek textile heritage: the desirability and ability of State museums to be inclusive of diverse cultures through the reconciliation of public cultural policies with private and community concerns." Awarded by:University of New South Wales. Art History and Theory, 2006. http://handle.unsw.edu.au/1959.4/31957.
Full textAbstract:
This thesis explores the desirability of Australia???s State museums to be inclusive of diverse cultures. In keeping with a cultural studies approach, and a commitment to social action, emphasis is placed upon enhancing the ability of State museums to fulfil obligations and expectations imposed upon them as modern collecting institutions in a culturally diverse nation. By relating the desirability and ability of State museums to attaining social justice in a multicultural Australia through broadening the concept of Australia???s heritage, the thesis is firmly situated within post-colonial discourse. The thesis analyses State multicultural, heritage, and museum legislation, in New South Wales, Victoria, and Queensland, with regard to State museums as agents of cultural policy. Results from a survey, Greeks and Museums, conducted amongst Australia???s Greeks in Sydney, Melbourne and Brisbane, reveal an anomaly between their museum-going habits and the perception of those habits as expressed by government policies promoting the inclusion of Australians of a non-English speaking background in the nation???s cultural programmes. In exploring the issue of inclusiveness, the thesis highlights the need for cultural institutions to shift the emphasis away from audience development, towards greater audience participation. The thesis outlines an initiative-derived Queensland Model for establishing an inclusive relationship between museums and communities, resulting in permanent, affordable, and authoritative collections, while simultaneously improving the museums??? international reputation and networking capabilities. By using the example of one of the nation???s non-indigenous communities, and drawing upon material obtained through the survey, and a catalogue containing photographs and lists of Greek textile collections found in the Powerhouse Museum (MAAS), Sydney, the National Gallery of Victoria and the Immigration Museum, Melbourne, the Queensland Art Gallery and the Queensland Museum, Brisbane, as well as collections owned by private individuals, the thesis focuses on the role played by museums in constructing social cohesion and inclusiveness.
24
Smith, Charlotte H. F., and n/a. "The house enshrined: the great man and social history house museums in the United States and Australia." University of Canberra. Resource, Environment & Heritage Sciences, 2002. http://erl.canberra.edu.au./public/adt-AUC20050701.140057.
Full textAbstract:
This thesis is a study of the origins and rationale of two categories of house
museum - here named "Great Man" and "Social History" - in the United States
and Australia. An examination of cultural, social and historical change provides
the context for the genres' evolution.
The Great Man genre was born in mid nineteenth-century America when two
houses associated with George Washington - Hasbrouck House and Mount
Vernon - were preserved and translated to museum status. Mount Vernon quickly
became the exemplar for house museums.
Civil religion, a secular nationalism that adopted the forms and rituals of church
religion, focusing on hero worship, pilgrimage and contemplation of transcendent
collective purpose, provided the ideology that sustained the new museum type.
Great Man house museums became the shrines at which such rituals could be
practiced.
In the early twentieth-century the specialization of heritage organizations
encouraged a new breed of heritage professional. Largely fabric focused, these
"new museum men" influenced philosophy, management and conservation
practice at house museums throughout the century.
Social history made its impact upon house museums in the latter decades of the
twentieth century. The paradigm encouraged the creation of a new category of
house museum. Existing Great Man house museums adopted some of its
characteristics though never lost their hero worship foundations. In fact, I posit
that the idea of hero worship was transferred to the new genre.
The birth and evolution of the two categories of house museum is demonstrated
through four biographical studies: Vaucluse House in Sydney; Monticello in
Charlottesville VA; the Lower East Side Tenement Museum in New York City;
and Susannah Place Museum in Sydney. I believe the findings demonstrate an
argument that applies at hundreds of house museums in the United States and
Australia.
25
Dalal-Clayton, Anjalie. "Coming into view : black British artists and exhibition cultures 1976-2010." Thesis, Liverpool John Moores University, 2015. http://researchonline.ljmu.ac.uk/4356/.
Full textAbstract:
This study unites the burgeoning academic field of exhibition histories and the critiques of race-based exhibition practices that crystallised in Britain in the 1980s and 1990s. It concerns recent practices of presenting and contextualising black creativity in British publicly funded art museums and galleries that are part of a broader attempt to increase the diversity of histories and perspectives represented in public art collections and exhibitions. The research focuses on three concurrent 2010 exhibitions that aimed to offer a non-hegemonic reading of black creativity through the use of non-art-historical conceptual and alternative curatorial models: Afro Modern (Tate Liverpool), Action (The Bluecoat), and a retrospective of works by Chris Ofili (Tate Britain). Comparative exhibitions of the past were typically premised on concepts of difference that ultimately resulted in the notional separation of black artists from mainstream discourses on contemporary art and histories of British art. Through a close and critical textual analysis of these three recent exhibitions, which is informed by J.L. Austin’s theory of speech acts (1955), the study considers whether, and to what extent the delimiting curatorial practices of the past have been successfully abandoned by public art museums and galleries, and furthermore, whether it has been possible for British art institutions to reject the entrenched, exclusive conceptions of British culture that negated black contributions to the canon and narratives of British art in the first place. The exhibition case studies are complemented and contextualised by an in-depth history of the Bluecoat’s engagement with black creativity between 1976 and 2012, which provides a particular insight into the ways that debates about representation, difference and separatism have impacted the policies and practices of one culturally significant art gallery that is frequently overlooked in histories of black British art. With reference to the notion of legitimate coercion as defined by Zygmunt Bauman (2000), the study determines that long-standing hegemonic structures continue to inform the modes through which public art museums and galleries in Britain curate and control black creativity.
26
Travis, Sarah Teresa. "Portraits of Young Artists: Artworlds, In/Equity, and Dis/Identification in Post-Katrina New Orleans." Thesis, University of North Texas, 2018. https://digital.library.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metadc1157583/.
Full textAbstract:
Using portraiture methodology and social practice theory, this study examined the identity work of young people engaged in a teen arts internship program at a contemporary arts center in post-Katrina New Orleans. This research asked four interrelated questions. Through the lens of a teen arts internship at a contemporary arts center in post-Katrina New Orleans, 1) How do contextual figured worlds influence artist identity work? 2) How does artist identity work manifest through personal narratives? 3) How does artist identity work manifest in activities? 4) What are the consequences of artist identity work? The findings of the study highlight how sociocultural factors influence dis/identification with the visual arts in young people and provoke considerations of in/equity in the arts.
27
Howard, Katherine. "Educating cultural heritage information professionals for Australia's galleries, libraries, archives and museums: A grounded Delphi study." Thesis, Queensland University of Technology, 2015. https://eprints.qut.edu.au/85088/1/Katherine_Howard_Thesis.pdf.
Full textAbstract:
This research explored the knowledge, skills, qualities, and professional education needs, of information professionals in galleries, libraries, archives and museums (GLAM) in Australia. The findings revealed that although full convergence of these sectors is unlikely, many of the skills, knowledge and qualities would be required across all four sectors. The research used the Grounded Delphi Method, a relatively new methodological extension of the Delphi method that incorporates aspects of Grounded Theory. The findings provide the first empirically based guidelines around what needs to be included in an educational framework for information professionals who will work in the emerging GLAM environment. As the first study of GLAM education requirements in Australia and the wider Asia-Pacific region to take a holistic approach by engaging information professionals across all four sectors, this thesis makes a contribution to the GLAM research field and to information education generally.
28
McKay, Duncan Robert. "Drawn from artists’ lives: An empirical study of the situation and realisation of professional visual art practices in the Western Australian Field of cultural production." Thesis, Edith Cowan University, Research Online, Perth, Western Australia, 2013. https://ro.ecu.edu.au/theses/2006.
Full textAbstract:
This thesis presents the findings of empirical research on the working lives of visual artists living and working in Western Australia. No detailed studies of this kind have previously been undertaken in a Western Australian context, though a series of national, economically framed studies have surveyed Australian artists working in a variety of art forms about their working lives on five occasions since the early 1980s. Collectively the reports published from these five studies make up the most comprehensive picture of artists’ economic activity that has been available to policymakers and others involved in arts and culture in this country (Australia Council, 1983; Throsby & Hollister, 2003; Throsby & Mills, 1989; Throsby & Thompson, 1994; Throsby & Zednik, 2010). Seldom, however, has other suitable empirical data been collected from Australian artists facilitating the evaluation of the findings, methods and assumptions underlying economic research in this area. The detailed qualitative data collected for this research both augments and interrogates the findings of national quantitative studies, assessing their applicability to the particular circumstances of professional visual artists working in this state.
Artists’ working lives were examined using data in two forms: Curriculum Vitaes (CVs) of 322 Western Australian visual artists, published on commercial gallery websites; and in-depth interviews with a diverse sample of 20 Western Australian visual artists. This data has provided access to what Florian Znaniecki (1934) has called the humanistic coefficient: the understandings that social actors have of the situations within which they are acting. Without this understanding it is not possible to properly account for social activity, such as professional art practice. CVs have rarely been used as a data source for research, so this study has taken an innovative methodological approach and has demonstrated the potential for further development of these methods and this form of social data. CVs of visual artists were used to examine the Western Australian field of cultural production, and to produce a network-map of the social values and the complex relationships between artists, commercial galleries and other entities in the field.
In-depth interviews with 20 visual artists, practising in different media, at different stages of their career and earning their living in diverse ways, have provided detailed accounts of how visual artists construct their professional artistic identities and sustain their creative practice in Western Australia. Through qualitative analysis of these accounts, a new conceptual model of the labour of visual art has emerged, in which artists’ work is considered across four interrelated kinds of cultural production. 1) Artists define their practice, making it real for themselves. 2) Artists create the conditions in which they can define and maintain their practice. 3) Artists attract validation of their practice, seeking to make it real for other people. Throughout their work to establish the cultural reality of their practice, 4) artists also strive to maintain the integrity of their practice, to ensure that they continue to recognise themselves within it. The development of this conceptual model, the CV study and the rich contextual material obtained through interviews have informed the multi-dimensional understanding of the work of professional artists presented in this thesis, challenging and building upon previous research.
29
James, Pamela J. "The lion in the frame the art practices of the national art galleries of New South Wales and New Zealand, 1918-1939 /." View thesis, 2003. http://library.uws.edu.au/adt-NUWS/public/adt-NUWS20040416.135231/index.html.
Full textAbstract:
Thesis (Ph.D.) -- University of Western Sydney, 2003."A thesis presented to the University of Western Sydney in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy" Includes bibliography.
30
Croft, Pamela Joy, and n/a. "ARTSongs: The Soul Beneath My Skin." Griffith University. Queensland College of Art, 2003. http://www4.gu.edu.au:8080/adt-root/public/adt-QGU20030807.124830.
Full textAbstract:
This exegesis frames my studio thesis, which explores whether visual art can be a site for reconciliation, a tool for healing, an educational experience and a political act. It details how my art work evolved as a series of cycles and stages, as a systematic engagement with people, involving them in a process of investigating 'their' own realities - both the stories of their inner worlds and the community story framework of their outer conditions. It reveals how for my ongoing work as an indigenous artist, I became the learner and the teacher, the subject and the object. Of central importance for my exploration was the concept and methodology of bothways. As a social process, bothways action-learning methodology was found to incorporate the needs, motivations and cultural values of the learner through negotiated learning. Discussion of bothways methodology and disciplinary context demonstrated the relationships, connections and disjunctions shared by both Aboriginal and Western domains and informed the processes and techniques to position visual art as an educational experience and a tool for healing. From this emerged a range of ARTsongs - installations which reveal possible new alternatives sites for reconciliation, spaces and frames of reference to 'open our minds, heart and spirit so we can know beyond the boundaries of what is acceptable, so that we can think and rethink, so that we can create new visions, transgressions - a movement against and beyond boundaries' (hooks, 1994 p.12). Central to studio production was bricolage as an artistic strategy and my commitment to praxis - to weaving together my art practice with hands-on political action and direct involvement with my communities. I refer to this as the trial and feedback process or SIDEtracks. These were documented acts of personal empowerment, which led to a more activist role in the political struggle of reconciliation. I conclude that, as aboriginal people, we can provide a leadership role, and in so doing, we can demonstrate to the wider community how to move beyond a state of apathy.
31
Chiu, Melissa, University of Western Sydney, of Arts Education and Social Sciences College, and Centre for Cultural Research. "Transexperience and Chinese experimental art, 1990-2000." THESIS_CAESS_CCR_Chiu_M.xml, 2003. http://handle.uws.edu.au:8081/1959.7/677.
Full textAbstract:
This dissertation focuses on Chinese artists who migrated to the West (Australia, the United States, and France )during the late eighties and early nineties. Throughout the thesis, it is argued that transexperience encourages a more fluid perception of the relationship to the homeland, not only positing it in the past but also in the present. The structure of the dissertation, devised in terms of locations, is relevant to the author's argument that the site of settlement is a significant determinant in the development of artistic expressions of overseas Chinese artists. A brief conclusion explores some of the most recent developments in the relationship between overseas Chinese artists and their homeland as seen in more frequent travel back, the exhibition of their work (which would have been impossible only a few years ago), and official invitations to represent China in international exhibitions.Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)
32
James, Pamela J., University of Western Sydney, of Arts Education and Social Sciences College, and School of Humanities. "The lion in the frame : the art practices of the national art galleries of New South Wales and New Zealand, 1918-1939." THESIS_CAESS_HUM_James_P.xml, 2003. http://handle.uws.edu.au:8081/1959.7/567.
Full textAbstract:
This study examines the art practices and management of the National Art Galleries of Australia and New Zealand in the period between the wars, 1918-1939.It does so in part to account for the pervading conservatism and narrow corridors of aesthetic acceptability evident in their acquisitions and in many of their dealings. It aims to explore the role of Britishness, through an examination of the influence of the London Royal Academy of Art, within theses emerging official art institutions. This study argues that the dominant artistic ideology illustrated in these National Gallery collections was determined by a social elite, which was, at its heart, British. Its collective taste was predicated on models established in Great Britain and on traditions and on connoisseurship. This visual instruction in the British ideal of culture, as seen through the Academy, was regarded as a worthy aspiration, one that was at once both highly nationalistic and also a tool of Empire unity. This ideal was nationalistic in the sense that it marked the desire of these Boards to claim for the nation membership of the world's civil society, whilst also acknowleging that the vehicle to do so was through an enhanced alliance with British art and culture. The ramifications of an Empire-first aesthetic model were tremendous. The model severely constrained taste in domestic art, limited the participation of indigenous peoples and shaped the reception of modernism.Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)
33
McDonald, Michelle. "Selling Utopia marketing the art of the women of Utopia /." Master's thesis, Australia : Macquarie University, 1999. http://hdl.handle.net/1959.14/15101.
Full textAbstract:
Thesis (MA)--Macquarie University, Institute of Early Childhood.Includes bibliographical references.
Introduction -- Literature review -- A brief history of Utopia's art production; its place in the indigenous art movement -- The role of the wholesaler -- The retail sector -- Report on survey of the buyers of indigenous art -- Emily Kame Kngwarreye -- Authenticity -- Conclusion.
Summary: The thesis focuses on marketing art from the Aboriginal community, Utopia, where the majority of artists, and the best known artists, are women. It documents methods by which the art moves from the community to retail art outlets; it includes detailed documentation of marketing in the retail sector and also includes research into the buying of indigenous art by private buyers. -- Emily Kame Kngwarreye is the best known of the Utopia painters. The study proposes reasons for her success and points to further questions beyond the scope of this study. Problems inherent in criticism and editing of her work are raised and interpreted in the context of the marketplace. -- The original thesis plan did not include detailed discussion about authorship. However, in 1997 the media reported controversy about authorship of a prize-winning work. As such controversy must affect marketing, this topic (as it relates to this artist), was included. -- Although possibilities for improvement in marketing methods have become apparent as a result of this research, areas where further research would be beneficial have also become apparent.
Mode of access: World Wide Web.
265, [48] p
34
Clifford, Sally Margaret. "Why have you drawn a wolf so badly? : community arts in healthcare." Thesis, Queensland University of Technology, 1997. https://eprints.qut.edu.au/35893/1/35893_Clifford_1997.pdf.
Full textAbstract:
Community arts is often criticised for its tendency to be more about welfare than art. This thesis investigates this claim through the environment of a growing number of
arts projects taking place in healthcare settings. Healthcare settings inherently deal with the field of welfare. This research has recognised that many of these projects are participation-based community arts projects. I have termed these projects arts-inhealth
and they form the case studies of this research.
Arts-in-health is not art therapy. Arts-in-health is a community arts-based approach to artmaking which enables people to access art processes and skills which are not part of the treatment or diagnosis of their illness. This thesis recognises that people belong to a communal web of relationships which can often be severed when they
become ill. Because arts-in-health encourages artmaking beyond a treatment framework, it can re-connect people to their communal web. is thesis claims that for community art to have this impact it must be designed and
implemented through artistic processes and not treatment, therapeutic or clinical ones. If community art processes do become distorted by therapeutic processes, they
will become more about welfare and less about art; consequently, they contribute less to the community in which individuals live.
35
Baguley, Margaret Mary. "The deconstruction of domestic space." Thesis, Queensland University of Technology, 1998. https://eprints.qut.edu.au/35896/1/35896_Baguley_1998.pdf.
Full textAbstract:
Introduction:
I find myself in the pantry, cleaning shelves, in the laundry, water slopping around my elbows, at the washing line, pegging clothes. I watch myself clean shelves, wash, peg clothes. These are the rhythms
that comfort. That postpone. (The Painted Woman, Sue Woolfe, p. 170)
As a marginalised group in Australian art history and society, women artists possess a valuable and vital craft tradition which inevitably influences all aspects of their arts practice. Installation art, which has its origins in the craft tradition, has only been
acknowledged in the art mainstream this decade; yet evolved in the home of the 1950s. The social policies of this era are well documented for their insistence on
women remaining in the home in order to achieve personal success in their lives. This cultural oppressiveness paradoxically resulted in a revolution in women's art in the environment to which they were confined. Women's creative energies were diverted and sublimated into the home, resulting in aesthetic statements of individuality in home decoration. As an art movement, women's installation art in the home provided the similar structures to formally recognised art schools in the mainstream, and include: informal networks and training (schools); matriarchs within the community
who were knowledgable in craft traditions and techniques and shared these with younger women (mentorships); visiting other homes and providing constructive
advice (critiques); and women's magazines and glory boxes (art journals and sketch books). A re-examination of this vital period in women's art history will reveal the
social policies and cultural influences which insidiously undermined women's art, which was based on craft traditions.
36
Walton, Alexandra. "Bold Impressions: A Comparative Analysis of Artist Prints and Print Collecting at the Imperial War Museum and Australian War Memorial." Phd thesis, 2017. http://hdl.handle.net/1885/154283.
Full textAbstract:
This thesis examines the historical development of the artist
print collections of the Imperial War Museum and Australian War
Memorial, and analyses the relationship of these collections to
their institutions. Printmaking is an artistic medium that has
historically been used by artists for social critique, and many
high quality works of this type are present in the two
collections. I argue that in both museums, when developing the
print collections, curators were able to acquire beyond the
strict interpretation of the museums’ collecting guidelines. As
a result of this, the prints have challenged some of the more
conservative underlying messages of the museums.
National war museums are ideal for a study of contested
histories, particularly those within their own collections, and
the IWM and AWM are prominent institutions in this specialist
category of museums. My hypothesis is that prints can destabilize
the histories that war museums wish to present due to their
historical use by artists for a variety of purposes that are
somewhat unique to the medium. This is driven by the materiality
of the print. This study also analyses how museum structures and
internal cultures affected the development of the print
collections. In particular, I have tried to answer the questions:
What factors influenced the development of the print collections?
And how did the professional agendas of curators inform that
development? Print collecting flourished at key points in the
histories of the institutions, particularly when fine art
specialists were in charge of acquisitions. While print
collecting broadly reflected the aims of the institutions at
different times, on occasion it introduced divergent narratives
into the war museums.
This thesis is interdisciplinary in the way it uses a history
methodology and museum studies framework. The historical research
methods employed include archival research and semi-structured
interviews with selected former and current museum staff. My
research will add to academic and curatorial knowledge about how
collections are formed in large national museums, and analyse the
role and significance of two collections that have not previously
been thoroughly examined. The thesis places the curator as the
creator of the collection, not merely as someone who carries out
instructions from management, but who negotiates between the
institutional forces, social forces and the nature of the
objects, to ultimately shape the collection.
37
"Rama IX Art Museum Foundation." 1999. http://www.rama9art.org.
Full text
38
Philp, Angela. "Museums and the public sphere in Australia : between rhetoric and practice." Phd thesis, 2006. http://hdl.handle.net/1885/109229.
Full text
39
Bowdler, Cath. "Peintpeintbat : four artists from Roper Way." Phd thesis, 2008. http://hdl.handle.net/1885/151044.
Full text
40
Schultz, Elaine. "Curating self-determination : individual, institutional, and intercultural relationships in australia's museums." Phd thesis, 2014. http://hdl.handle.net/1885/151104.
Full textAbstract:
Since the 1970s, museums have come to re-envision their social purpose, and the ways in which they can and should serve their various stakeholders. Following this, museums have come to associate themselves with the realization of minority rights, articulated in the principles of the new museology and developed alongside civil rights movements drawing attention to the historic violations of Indigenous rights within these institutions. As a result, "self-determination" has entered discourses of museum practice, changing the ways in which museums perceive their responsibilities toward Indigenous collections; motivating new conversations with Indigenous people; and relating these interactions to notions of human rights, social justice, and equality. The notion of "self-determination," however, contains significant internal contradictions, basing groups' rights to maintain their social and cultural differences and the autonomy to do so on arguments of inherent universal equalities. In turn, these same arguments of equality, coupled with concerns for the unity of the nation, require communities' full inclusion within the life of the nation, without distinction or discrimination. The effect of power imbalances between majority and minority perspectives, then, is frequently to challenge the realization of Indigenous self-determination by pushing for people's greater participation in pre-existing social, economic, and political structures, assuming their assimilation into dominant frameworks rather than protecting their differences. Theories of interculturality, which address the ways in which identities are constantly (re)negotiated through interactions with others, offer a more dynamic view of the mutual impact of such engagements, suggesting that inclusion of Indigenous minorities within mainstream structures need not require their assimilation. Attention to such intercultural exchange, however, also reveals the ways in which structures of power are reproduced within these engagements, as national interests gain a stake in the expression and representation of Indigenous identities and cultures. Recognizing the substantial external influence exerted here in the construction of "authentic" Indigenous identities thereby further calls into question the ability of Indigenous people to relate to others based upon their own representations of self. This thesis furthers these discussions of Indigenous rights and intercultural relationships by interrogating intended meanings and assumed outcomes in such social goals as "self-determination," "inclusion," and "protection of diversity," with a particular focus on Australia and Aboriginal Australians. In doing so, I consider the work of self-determination as enacted by individuals within four Australian cultural institutions, questioning the context inspiring their particular pursuit of self-determination and the nature of relationships that develop in response. Considering these institutions individually and comparatively and building upon histories of Aboriginal policies and Australian museums, I argue that "self-determination" in Australia should not be interpreted as a discrete period of Aboriginal policy but as part of an evolving and enduring process to address the presence of Aboriginal difference while maintaining national unity. Despite the declaration of its end as a policy approach, "self-determination" continues to gain its greatest meaning and content from the quality of intercultural relationships it inspires, and the extent to which emerging dialogues allow for recognition of and negotiation between both Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal identities.
41
Bojic, Zoja. "Emigre artists of Slav cultural heritage working in Australia in the 20th century." Phd thesis, 2005. http://hdl.handle.net/1885/150566.
Full text
42
Thompson, Stephanie Lindsay. "Museums connecting cultures : the representation of indigenous histories and cultures in small museums of Western Sydney." Master's thesis, 2003. http://hdl.handle.net/1885/148519.
Full text
43
Winters, Yvonne. "Indigenous aesthetics and narratives in the works of Black South African artists in local art museums." Thesis, 2009. http://hdl.handle.net/10413/618.
Full textAbstract:
This dissertation is an amalgam of reformulated essays on artists who had connections with 20-21st century KwaZulu-Natal: They appeared in exhibition catalogues that accompanied the exhibitions; The Azaria Mbatha Retrospective, 1998, The Trevor Makhoba Memorial, 2005 and Cyprian Mpho Shilakoe Revisited, 2006. Chapter 1, the introduction; outlines the chapters, gives the theoretical and broader theoretical framework, history of the region and art therein, literature survey and methodology. Central to the theoretical framework is an attempt to meld the original essays into a coherent whole; by expanding the interpretation of indigenous cultural world-view to include the concept of orality versus literate cultures. Even in the transformation to literacy with westernization and Christianity the African oral mind-set is still operative; thus for instance the early Zulu writers like R.R.R. Dhlomo rendered the Zulu kings‘ oral praise-poems into written form and these became set-works for Zulu schools up until the 1994 new dispensation. Also dealt with are related issues of what therefore constitutes 'Africanness‘ and debates whether it is but the invention of the west in need of the 'Other‘ (something arguably pertinent to the art-collector‘s reasons for collecting), or if there is that own to the African style, like the oral style, which can be termed a 'legitimate Africanness‘ if one will. Further, how this style then exhibits itself in the visual arts as a 'preferred form‘ in terms of medium, colour, patterning and favored technique which best conspire to express these qualities. Chapter 2 (essay 1) and chapter 3 (essay 2), carry forward the assumptions made in the introduction. In modern times the oral genre has developed into an exciting style; namely the development of urban, often migrant musical forms, like isicathimiya, that challenge politics, social-wrongs, racism and taboos. It is argued that an artist like Trevor Makhoba can be considered a social commentator and 'master of the oral genre‘ in that he rendered this style into visual form. Certain of Makhoba‘s works depicting white females and black males are analyzed in this light and it is suggested that the oral genre also draws upon both stereotypical and universal archetypal imagery. Chapter 3 (essay 2) considers Azaria Mbatha‘s use of the older oral story-telling mode, rendered in linocut medium as an echo of earlier indigenous wooden 'pokerwork‘ panels, to transmit a political message in line with concepts of African Christianity, itself a syncretism of the Christian message with African world-view. This allegory was needed in a time where the Nationalist Government would have made open insurrection impossible. Chapter 4 (essay 3) concerns ex-Rorke‘s Drift art-student Cyprian Shilakoe. I analyze his aquatints in the light of his own Sotho cultural ideas on contagion and the ancestors for deeper meaning. The fact of culture change is accepted and mention is made of the artist‘s friend and fellow student, Dan Rakgoathe‘s melding of western esoteric mysticism, like Rosicrucianism, into African thinking and how far this impacted on the more traditional Shilakoe‘s works. The essays are followed by Chapter 5, the conclusion, which serves to come to some resolution. This is then followed by the bibliography.Thesis (M.A.)-University of KwaZulu-Natal, Pietermaritzburg, 2009.
44
Topliss, Helen. "Australian female artists and modernism, 1900-1940." Phd thesis, 1992. http://hdl.handle.net/1885/133859.
Full textAbstract:
The thesis provides a revaluation of the art of Australian women artists in the
period 1900-1940. In the first instance, this study attempts to answer the
question posed by a number of male historians: "Why were there so many
succesful Australian women artists in the period between the two world wars?"
My answer has involved the analysis of three major phenomena:
1. The women's emancipation movement which enfranchised women and
gave them the key to education and subsequently to the professions.
2. The women artists of the early twentieth century were the direct benefactors
of the women's movement, the confidence that the new woman acquired
enabled her to continue her studies abroad for the first time in significant
numbers.
3. Women artists became identified with modernism and also for their
contribution to the arts and crafts movement. Critics have noted that there was
a large proportion of women artists involved with various aspects of the
modernist movement. The question has not been examined before in
Australian art because there has not been any enquiry into their collective
artistic genealogies, nor has the interconnectedness of much of their art been
noticed before. When this is analysed, it becomes clear that women had a
special affinity with aspects of modernism because of their gendered artistic
education in the nineteenth century which rendered them particularly sensitive
to some aspects of modernism. This is clear in most of the case studies of the
women artists whose careers I examine here.
My study has been conducted from the point of view established by certain
feminist critics and art historians whose theories have provided an important
perspective on the art of this period. This perspective is a necessary one, it
hinges on the concepr of "difference" in women's artistic expression. This
theory of "difference" also provides a parallel to the sociological study of women's liberation at the beginning of this century (the data for which IS
provided in the Appendices at the end of the thesis). The theory of "difference"
can be seen to link up with an analysis of gendered art education and thus
facilitates an understanding of why it was that so many women readily
pursued the criteria for modernist art.
45
Allen, Siemon D. "The FLAT Gallery : a documentation and critical examination of an informal art organisation in Durban." Thesis, 1999. http://hdl.handle.net/10321/2057.
Full textAbstract:
This Dissertation is submitted in partial compliance with the requirements for the Masters Degree in Technology: Fine Art, Technikon Natal, 1999.In this research paper I will examine the Durban based 'alternative/informal' art space, the FLAT Gallery, which operated from October 1993 to January 1995. I will begin by first defining what is meant by an 'alternative space' and by looking at the historical development of such spaces both in South Africa and the United States of America. This will include an investigation into the ideological motivations and socio-political influences behind such spaces, as well as an exploration of what is meant by 'alternative practice', which I will show as being inseparable from the mission of the 'alternative space.' This will by no means be a comprehensive survey of alternative spaces in South Africa or the United States, but rather a tracing of the phenomenon with relevant examples. Here, I will explore the similarities that existed between the FLAT and other contemporary artist initiatives in South Africa and the United States, drawing comparisons between the FLAT and other similar venues. I will examine the particular circumstances that catalyzed the FLAT Gallery in the specific cultural and historical context of Durban, South Africa in 1993 and 1994. I will then construct a chronological documentation of the FLAT Gallery' s programme including interviews and extensive visual and audio archives. With this archival information and with detailed descriptions of each event, exhibition or performance, I will create a comprehensive record of the FLAT Gallery's activities. This will include an investigation into the historical influences, with specific examples of linkages to other artist-motivated projects in the past. In this way, I will both identify important precedents for many of the FLAT projects. I will conclude with those 'FLAT activities' that continued beyond the operation of the 'alternative/informal' space. It is my intention to create a document that not only offers a comprehensive study of the FLAT Gallery's programme, but also offers students, recent graduates and emerging artists useful practical information. This document is an affirmation of the possibilities for working and exhibiting once one has left the 'comforts' of faculty guidance, peer support, studio facilities and venues for showing work that the institutional environment provides. My claim is that there rests in the artist the responsibility to actively build a place where his/her development as a creative individual can flourish; that one must not wait for 'permission' or for 'someone' to offer validation of one's work. With this document I intend to demonstrate that it is indeed possible here in Durban to do Something!.
M
46
Meyerowitz, Lisa Ann. "Exhibiting equality : black-run museums and galleries in 1970s New York /." 2001. http://gateway.proquest.com/openurl?url_ver=Z39.88-2004&res_dat=xri:pqdiss&rft_val_fmt=info:ofi/fmt:kev:mtx:dissertation&rft_dat=xri:pqdiss:3006536.
Full text
47
Phillips, Dimity. "Impressions of distance : a study of women printmakers practising in regional Australia 1993-2003." Phd thesis, 2005. http://hdl.handle.net/1885/150792.
Full text
48
Reuter, Emily. "Terra Incognita: the sublime, the uncanny and nostalgia in painting the landscape Australian." Thesis, 2009. http://hdl.handle.net/1959.13/805548.
Full textAbstract:
Masters Research - Master of Fine ArtThis paper is written in four parts: Melancholy and the Colonial in Australia, the Sublime with Aspects of the Picturesque, the Strange - Freud's Unheimlich, the Uncanny, and a journal on the author's travel through Central Australia. The above is explored and shown how they continue to shape Australian identity, the author's painting practices and that of other Australian artists.
49
Weston, Neville 1936. "The professional training of artists in Australia, 1861-1963, with special reference to the South Australian model / by Neville Edward Weston." 1991. http://hdl.handle.net/2440/19757.
Full textAbstract:
Bibliography: leaves 537-561xxi, 561 leaves : ill ; 31 cm.
Title page, contents and abstract only. The complete thesis in print form is available from the University Library.
Thesis (Ph.D.)--University of Adelaide, Dept. of Education, 1993?
50
Simpson, Sally Robyn. "Practice-led research into ways the museum is explored as a house of wonder in contemporary sculpture." Master's thesis, 2012. http://hdl.handle.net/1885/156002.
Full textAbstract:
The contemporary ecological debate embodies diverse opinions reflecting the complexity of information available. The museum has recorded the history of human-nature relations, and has influenced ways in which meaning has been assigned to nature. Its influence over the interpretation of objects has been critiqued by 20th century artists and postmodern theorists. However, the museum also continues to engage and inspire some artists, and this research uncovers reasons for this. This research investigates the ways in which contemporary sculpture can employ museum aesthetics to draw attention to flexible and uncertain meaning regarding ecological issues. It is undertaken in two parts. The first, the studio work with an exegesis of 8,000 words, investigates two particular sites and applies museum methodology to sculptures inspired by those environments. The work is supported by a dissertation of 18,000 words researching the work of Mark Dion and Fiona Hall. Both of these artists appropriate museum aesthetics in order to demonstrate that meaning is flexible and engage the viewer in the interpretive process. The studio research culminates in two bodies of work related to the two sites chosen, using the aesthetics of cultural artefacts, natural specimens, and skeleton galleries found in museums of natural history and ethnography. The form and materiality of these objects intends to defy didactic interpretation. The dissertation reveals that, as a result of its history, the museum is a house of wonder and mystery. The examination of Dion's and Hall's works demonstrates their use of postmodern strategies to both challenge the museum and exploit its potential as a house of wonder, and ultimately to engage the viewer's curiosity and active interpretation.Vol.1: Dissertation -- vol.2: Exegesis.