Rozprawy doktorskie na temat „Photography of interiors – Exhibitions”

Master of Visual Arts
The Dissertation is a meditation on our relationship with this continent and its layered physical and psychological ‘landscapes’. It explores ways in which artists and writers have depicted our ‘thin’ but evolving presence here in the South, and references my own photographic work. The paper weaves together personal tales with fiction writing and cultural, settler and indigenous history. It identifies a uniquely Australian sense of 21st-century disquiet and argues for some modest aesthetic and social antidotes. It discusses in some detail the suppression of focus in photography, and suggests that the technique evokes not only memory, but a recognition of absence, which invites active participation (as the viewer attempts to ‘place’ and complete the picture). In seeking out special essences of place the paper considers the suburban poetics of painter Clarice Beckett, the rigorous focus-free oeuvre of photographer Uta Barth, and the hybrid vistas of artist/gardener Peter Hutchinson and painter Dale Frank. Interwoven are the insights of contemporary authors Gerald Murnane, W G Sebald and Paul Carter. A speculative chapter about the fluidity of landscape, the interconnectedness of land and sea, and Australia’s ‘deep’ geology fuses indigenous spirituality, oceanic imaginings of Australia, the sinuous bush-scapes of Patrick White, and the poetics of surfing. Full immersion is recommended.

The Dissertation is a meditation on our relationship with this continent and its layered physical and psychological ‘landscapes’. It explores ways in which artists and writers have depicted our ‘thin’ but evolving presence here in the South, and references my own photographic work. The paper weaves together personal tales with fiction writing and cultural, settler and indigenous history. It identifies a uniquely Australian sense of 21st-century disquiet and argues for some modest aesthetic and social antidotes. It discusses in some detail the suppression of focus in photography, and suggests that the technique evokes not only memory, but a recognition of absence, which invites active participation (as the viewer attempts to ‘place’ and complete the picture). In seeking out special essences of place the paper considers the suburban poetics of painter Clarice Beckett, the rigorous focus-free oeuvre of photographer Uta Barth, and the hybrid vistas of artist/gardener Peter Hutchinson and painter Dale Frank. Interwoven are the insights of contemporary authors Gerald Murnane, W G Sebald and Paul Carter. A speculative chapter about the fluidity of landscape, the interconnectedness of land and sea, and Australia’s ‘deep’ geology fuses indigenous spirituality, oceanic imaginings of Australia, the sinuous bush-scapes of Patrick White, and the poetics of surfing. Full immersion is recommended.

This dissertation presents a fresh approach to the study of Haitian art through research conducted in the emerging interdisciplinary field of exhibition history. In a deliberate attempt to move away from existing notions of Haitian art as a formal or aesthetic style of art practice associated with primitivism – based on mid-twentieth-century art historical narratives – I have opted to explore the display of works by Haitian artists outside of conventional museum and gallery settings. Taking a broader cultural studies approach centred on three case studies, I examine the exhibition of artworks within the transitory sites of national cultural display at two world’s fairs and an art biennial: the Haitian pavilion at the World’s Columbian Fair of 1893; Haiti’s “Little World’s Fair” officially titled Exposition Internationale du Bicentenaire de Port-au-Prince of 1949-50; and the Haitian pavilion at the Venice Biennale in 2011. These exhibitions overlap in the sense that they all claimed to present an official representation of the Haitian nation-state and therefore an authoritative vision of Haitian culture. However, when we peer behind this veneer of official national rhetoric it becomes clear that at each of these sites there were numerous images of Haitian nationhood, as well as notions of a national cultural essence referred to throughout as Haitian-ness, being produced by various agents. Across the course of this study these include: Haitian and foreign state representatives, curators, artists, academics and cultural professionals drawn from Haiti, Haiti’s diasporas and elsewhere, as well as NGOs and other international collaborators. In each case those curating Haiti’s national displays at these events balanced assertions of national sovereignty against international marketability: delicate negotiations that, I argue, can be discerned through analysis of the forms, aesthetics, subjects and contextualisation of the artworks displayed. Across the course of this dissertation therefore I chart a shift in the substance of these Haitian cultural displays, and the artworks presented within them, from a fin de siècle expression of Francophile neoclassicism, through an uneasy post-war coupling of folkloric exoticism and western modernity, to a fragmented picture of contemporary Haitian-ness articulated with reference to poverty and cultural otherness as well as cosmopolitanism. Through an examination of these case studies I have sought to explore how the visual arts intersected with expressions of Haiti’s postcolonial nationhood at exhibitions staged within events scattered across the Atlantic World. Further, by charting shifts in the production and projection of Haitian nationhood and art across these three sites I have attempted to grasp a fuller picture of how entangled ideas of nation and culture have had a bearing on exhibition histories, international institutional engagement with and the marketing and perception of the work of Haitian artists through the long twentieth century.

The artist's process in which she examines the built environment through the medium of black and white photography. By tracing the trajectory of her awareness of architecture from her early career as a dancer, to the making of photographic images, the artist illuminates the process of deconstructing architectural and pictorial space into fragmented yet illusionistically convincing photographic montages. Influenced by the urban localities in which she dwells, she tells the story of being captivated by the post-industrial landscape of Williamsburg, Brookyn, NY, followed by landing in New Orleans and her fascination with post-Katrina architecture. Grounded in the analog techniques of traditional black and white photography, Levitsky describes the various means by which she alters her images to create visionary reconstructions of buildings in transitional states.

This thesis engages with the contribution made by literary and visual representations to debates about woman's role in Britain and America between 1860 and 1917. During, that is, a period of transition from the relative securities of the early Victorian period until the radical social shifts propelled by the First World War. I introduce design reform debates in painting and interior design, and examine how these were approached by George Eliot, Henry James and Edith Wharton, both in the homes they actually lived in, and those they created in their fictions, particularly for their female characters. Issues of the aesthetic and the moral, and the shifting relationships between them, underpin responses to art and design of the period, and are reflected generally in the literary and visual arts. The representation of women in domestic space, in actual and literary interiors, necessarily has ideological implications regarding the proper place of women within society. Thus, directly and obliquely, questions were repeatedly being asked about what constituted a desirable and fulfilling life for women in this society, and how such a life was to be achieved. To support my contention that this is a wide debate, I am looking at representational paintings of women in interiors, and advice about decoration in manuals of household taste, to augment the primary focus of the thesis on various fictional portraits of ladies. In the Introduction I discuss some recent examinations of women's space and place in Victorian society in art historical, literary and cultural studies. I explain the ideology of separate spheres and how it was interpreted in the plan and decoration of the home, underpinning the codification of interior decoration. I consider also how theorisations of 'the gaze' have been used to analyse representations of women and to explore issues of female empowerment. In Chapter One I examine the history of the design reform movement, Aestheticism, the application of the separate spheres in practice and the influence of manuals of household taste on how the home was actually decorated. Women's taste was a contested issue and the conceptual conflation of the women's body with the house formed the background to Aesthetic paintings of women. Some women decorators, often connected to radical political movements, used their professionalism to make the home a site of power, countering the seeming entrapment of women within the interior. In Chapter Two I examine George Eliot's unconventional home life, particularly the decoration of The Priory. I discuss how she utilised interiors and related themes of seeing and commodity fetishism in the explication of character in The Mill on the Floss, Middlemarch and Daniel Deronda. Sympathy with the wider world enables Eliot's female characters to transcend the destruction of subjectivity threatened by constriction within an unhappy home. In Chapter Three I examine how Henry James dealt with the complicated conceptual relationship of Europe and America in The Europeans, using themes of the search for a home and the theatricality of self-presentation. I explain his notion of the House of Fiction, which was expanded by Edith Wharton. In The Portrait of a Lady, taste is used as a moral indicator in his discussion of the 'envelope of circumstance', with Aestheticism as the background to its use. James theorises the status of women as objects within interiors and what this means for Isabe1' s developing consciousness, as she searches for a husband and home. James uses the ambiguities of 'seeing' to explore how good taste is reached at expense of human relationships. In Chapter Four I discuss Henry James's own search for a home in his later years, and the significance of Lamb House. I discuss his friendship with Edith Wharton and compare their taste in decoration and how this related to moral themes in their novels. In The Spoils of Poynton good or bad taste seems to divide people morally. However, the rigidity of these divisions is questioned, and Fleda and Mrs Gereth discover unhappiness as an authentication of experience, in a small home without men. In Chapter Five I discuss Edith Wharton's development as a writer, the homes she grew up in and how this relates to the decoration and creation of her own homes. Her highly theorised approach to interior decoration is demonstrated by The Decoration of Houses, which was put into practice in her own homes, finding its most perfect expression in The Mount. Wharton's experiences of creating a home for herself gave her the strength to write out of a society disinclined to attribute serious artistic effort to women, and her writings re-enacted the problems she encountered living in this society. In Chapter Six I examine Wharton's The Houseo! Mirth, Ethan Frome and Summer, employing Wharton's aesthetic theories as a key to interpretation of her fictional works. Lily Bart is seen within different interiors as she descends through society, and gender issues are illuminated by a discussion of how the tableau vivant at the centre-point of the book brings together themes of theatricality and the gaze. Lily's self-fashioning is fraught with misreadings by her society, disastrous for her search for a happy and beautiful home. The poorer setting of the two novellas demonstrates that Wharton applied her theories across social strata. For Wharton, the achievement of a happy home, morally decorated, could be impossible for women in American Victorian society. In the Conclusion I look at paintings by progressive artists which enacted the instabilities of cultural change in their depiction of women in interiors. The Great War destroyed the bourgeois interior that the fictional women I have discussed found it so difficult to remain within. The rejection of the constrictions of separate spheres became part of a new feminist project, articulated by Virginia Woolf and Catherine Carswell. Women no longer felt the need to be constrained by the gilded cage, and looked for possibilities lying outside of the drawing room.

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Conselho Nacional de Pesquisa e Desenvolvimento Científico e Tecnológico - CNPq
The objective of this research is to develop a study of the archives of semiotic-based processes in contemporary art and analyzing the creative process of Rodrigo Braga to investigate the ways of art through this and to understand the artist that transits be-tween different languages. The dissertation will be developed by surveying the evolution of Rodrigo Braga’s career and his emblematic works in the last decades. Covering his sketches, annotations and drawings, even documents in creation process, and by the end, following-up in exhibitions, where the artist will be observed closely, while finishing a work, before opening for public exposure. The result of these analyzes will lead the research meeting some procedural proce-dures that will help to understand the work of Rodrigo Braga. As a new artist, with a career that is still in progress and since his work is in the process of development, the research tends to generate discoveries that are still unpublished, including the artist himself. The studies will focus on his carried out works during the last decades and on the projects which are developed during the research. Through these documents of production process, the trajectories of Rodrigo Braga will be mapped into Brazilian and international artistic context and, thus, to present how much are his works relate to the performance, photography, video, installation and the evolution of his works based on creation process
O objetivo desta pesquisa é buscar desenvolver um estudo de arquivos de processos de base semiótica na arte contemporânea, analisando o processo criativo de Rodrigo Braga e através disto investigar os caminhos da arte para entender um artista que transita entre diferentes linguagens. A dissertação será desenvolvida, através de um levantamento da evolução da carreira de Rodrigo Braga e de trabalhos emblemáticos do artista nas últimas décadas. Serão estudados, na sequência, os esboços, anotações e desenhos, ou seja, documentos de seu processo de criação e, por fim, o acompanhamento em montagens de exposições, onde o artista será observado de perto, enquanto finaliza um trabalho, antes de abrir para exposição pública. O resultado dessas análises levará a pesquisa ao conhecimento de alguns procedimentos processuais que ajudará a entender a obra de Rodrigo Braga. Por se tratar de um artista novo, com a carreira ainda em evolução, onde a sua obra está em processo de desenvolvimento, a pesquisa tende a gerar descobertas que ainda são inéditas, inclusive ao artista. Os estudos serão elaborados focando em trabalhos realizados nas últimas décadas e também nos projetos desenvolvidos no decorrer da pesquisa. Através desses documentos de processo de produção serão mapeados os percursos de Rodrigo Braga no contexto artístico brasileiro e internacional e, assim, apresentar como se dá a relação de suas obras com a performance, fotografia, vídeo, instalação e a evolução de seus trabalhos pautada no processo de criação

Orientador: Iara Lis Franco Schiavinatto
Dissertação (mestrado) - Universidade Estadual de Campinas, Instituto de Filosofia e Ciencias Humanas
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Resumo: O presente estudo apresenta uma coletânea de artigos sobre fotografia, publicados entre 1948-1951 no Boletim do Foto-Cine Clube Bandeirante (FCCB), fundado em 1939, em São Paulo. Esses artigos trazem um debate sobre a fotografia enquanto representação artística, inspirada nos parâmetros do pictorialismo, que divulgavam um modo de atualização da fotografia enquanto arte. Acompanhando a coletânea, este estudo pretendeu matizar as idéias dos artigos, levantando as noções que embasaram a produção fotográfica do FCCB a se projetar como 'moderna' no circuito artístico e cultural da cidade de São Paulo. Procurou-se identificar as disputas e as intenções que uma produção possui ao se divulgar como parte 40 moderno. Em sua maioria, os artigos que compõe a coletânea são traduzidos de revistas oriundas de associações fotográficas internacionais, tomando-se referência para a discussão desta prática no Clube
Abstract: This study intends to present collected articles about photography published between 1948-1951 on the Foto-Cine Clube Bandeirante (FCCB) Bulletin, founded in 1939 in São Paulo. This articles bring up a debate about photography as al1 ,artistic representation inspired on pictorialistic parameters, which spread a way to ,update photography as an art formo With the collected articles, this study tried to balance the articles ideas, raising the notions that supported the concept of FCCB's photographic production as modern in the artistic and cultural circuit of São Paulo. This study intended to identify the disputes and intentions inhen(?t to ~ production which spreads itself as part of the moderno Most of the collected articles ~~e translated ITom international photographic associations magazines and became reference for photographic discussions at the Club and stated its cosmopolitan character
Mestrado
Politica, Memoria e Cidade
Mestre em História

Cette thèse suit les trajectoires de quelques images choisies, d'abord réalisées sur et puis par des hommes et des femmes somalis de la Corne de l'Afrique depuis la fin du 19ème siècle à nos jours.Supports et vecteurs de la production et diffusion de savoirs anthropologiques auXIXème siècle, notamment dans le cadre d'exhibitions ethnographiques somalies en Europe - dont l'étude propose une reconstruction chronologique à partir de 1890 - ou au cours de missions d'explorations à caractère politico-commercial, ce travail entreprend d’étudier modalités et contextes de production, appréciation et filiation des « images somalies » produites en France dans les milieux savants et populaires.L’étude des circulations et réappropriations de quelques-unes de ces images historiques sur Internet, pour servir des enjeux contemporains, a conduit ensuite à analyser comment, à l’ère numérique, une jeune génération issue de la diaspora somalienne prend aujourd'hui la parole (et questionne ainsi qui peut parler et comment) à travers des projets de blogs/sites et tente ainsi de constituer (réparer ?) une « autre » archive photographique somalie. Ce faisant, elle interroge à la fois l’image du pays dans le médias internationaux (image associée, en grande partie, à la famine, au terrorisme islamique, à la piraterie et/ou à l’« État en faillite ») et les modalités de transmission d’autres mémoires, enfouies, de ce pays, dans un contexte de « destruction de l’histoire ».Enfin, la troisième et dernière partie de l’étude s'intéresse brièvement aux pratiques photographiques observées à Djibouti de 2010 à 2012, ici aussi avec une attention particulière à la manière dont les images produites ont été (ou sont aujourd’hui) conservées.Ce travail fait le pari d’une écriture de l’histoire (en cours) qui assume les manques et les vides – point que partagent ici chercheuse et sujets de la recherche - et s’élabore à partir de fragments (matériels tout autant que numériques) en mouvement, en s’efforçant de mettre en relief comment leurs circulations affectent à chaque fois leur compréhension et significations
This thesis traces the trajectories of some selected images, first taken of and then by Somali men and women from the Horn of Africa since the late 19th century to the present.Taken during ethnographic exhibitions of Somalis in Europe (of which this workproposes a detailed timeline since 1890) or commercial and political exploration missions to East Africa, these photographs have been both the medium and vector through which a certain knowledge has been produced and circulated concerning these people. This study undertakes, therefore, to examine the modes and contexts ofproduction, consumption and filiation of these "Somali images" in learned societies and popular newspapers in France.The study of the circulation and reappropriation of these historical images today on the Internet to serve contemporary purposes then leads to an analysis of how, in the digital era, a young, Internet-savvy generation from the Somali diaspora is now reclaiming its voice (raising questions about who can speak and how) through new website and blog projects, which attempt to establish (or mend?) an alternative Somali photographic archive. Thus, these projects both question the image of Somalia in the international media (an image associated, to a great extent, with famine, Islamic terrorism, piracy and "failed states") and offer new ways of preserving and transmitting other, often buried, memories of this country and its past before the civil war in the context of a certain "destruction of history".Finally, the third and last part of this study briefly revolves around photographicpractices observed in Djibouti during fieldwork from 2010 to 2012, here again with aparticular attention to the ways in which images are produced and conserved.This thesis raises the challenge of writing an on-going history that embraces itslacunae and voids – a feature that the researcher and the "subjects" of the research share – based on evolving material and digital fragments, in an attempt to highlight how their circulations profoundly affect their meanings and they ways in which we understand and make sense of them

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Theoretical reflections and images/photographies approach in this research the complex domain which involves the visitors and art exhibition museums in Brazil and abroad. Based on research methodologies in Arts (Róldan & Marin-Viadel, 2012), single images or compound as photoshoots are considered a mode of knowledge and foster studies and reflections. Apart from the dialogue among images, the experience lived and the thought of scholars from different areas, the lightness of poetry and metaphors is also included in this work as well as reflections from contemporary art and Art history. Some issues concerning the contemporary scenario which can impede the meeting between the individual and art are discussed, such as excess, spect cle, consumerism, speed, tourism. These issues constitute what was named as penumbra and nourish the attitudes of the fugitive subject visitors. There must be both for the visitor and the researcher an openness for the aesthetical experience, land of the pilgrim, in order to unveil penumbra, ambivalence, maze and twilight. This openness inspires the research as a path of pilgrimage in order to search for the understanding of the complexity of phenomena and the poetic work of capturing the images shots at the exhibitions. This research of phenomenological nature adopts the theoretical framework of authors who reflect upon contemporaneity, such as Calabrese (1988), Bauman (2001); as well as authors who value sensibility and experience, such as Bachelard (1988), Dewey(2010), Merleau-Ponty(1975), Ferreira Santos (2005), Maffesoli (1998).
Reflexões teóricas e imagens/ fotografias abordam nesta pesquisa o complexo território que envolve os visitantes e os museus de exposições de arte, no Brasil e no exterior. Com base nas metodologias de pesquisa em arte (Róldan & Marin-Viadel, 2012), imagens individuais ou compostas como foto-ensaios são consideradas uma forma de conhecimento e impulsionam o estudo e a reflexão. Além do diálogo entre as imagens, a experiência vivida e o pensamento de estudiosos de diferentes áreas, inclui-se a leveza da poesia e das metáforas, além de reflexões derivadas da arte contemporânea e da história da arte. São discutidas algumas questões acerca da paisagem contemporânea que podem dificultar o encontro do sujeito com a arte, tais como o excesso, o espetáculo, o consumo, a velocidade, o turismo, que constituem o que foi nomeado de penumbra e alimentam as atitudes dos visitantes sujeitos fugidios. Tanto para o visitante, quanto para a pesquisadora, a fim de desvelar em meio à penumbra e as ambivalências, ao labirinto e ao crepúsculo, há que se ter a abertura para a experiência estética, terreno do peregrino. Abertura que inspira a pesquisa como uma trajetória de peregrinação em busca de compreensão da complexidade dos fenômenos e o trabalho poético de captura das imagens - flagrantes nas exposições. A pesquisa de cunho fenomenológico adota como referencial teórico autores que abordam reflexões sobre a contemporaneidade tais como: Calabrese (1988), Bauman (2001); e autores que valorizam a sensibilidade e a experiência, entre eles: Bachelard (1988), Dewey(2010), Merleau-Ponty(1975), Ferreira Santos (2005), Maffesoli (1998).

Se o que existiu e foi fotografado na paisagem urbana possibilitou a incorporação do que se tornou visível nos artefatos nominados Documentos poéticos, no acervo artístico e no projeto curatorial de exposições do Museu de Arte do Rio Grande do Sul Ado Malagoli (2011-2014), como O Cânone pobre: uma arqueologia da precariedade na arte; em contraste, propiciou a organização dos Relatórios imaginais correspondentes à Coleção Objetos de pesquisa em artes plásticas, os quais existem, foram fotografados durante o experimento e, pelo viés histórico, incorporados ao acervo do Museu Paranaense e socializados no Pergamum (2012- 2014). Esse princípio metodológico para estruturar a investigação sobre o gesto fotográfico como ato criativo em espaços transitórios, das ações museológicas praticadas por seres humanos em relação com os objetos circundantes, assegurou inteligentes graus de interação além da época de nossa cidade Curitiba, ao sul do Brasil. Neste duradouro work in progress, fragmentário, porque é aberto e comunicável como deve ser seu destino, o objetivo acentuado é o de dizer e mostrar algo que se veja da entropia e da ruína na forma de arte em processo observado desde o início. As noções de ‘transitoriedade’, encontrada na Origem do drama barroco alemão; do ‘progresso’ e da ‘atualização’, no Livro de los pasajes, em que estão dispostos, respectivamente, os papéis dos “rollos” D [El tedio, eterno retorno] e N [Teoría del conocimiento, teoría del progreso], obras de Walter Benjamin (1892-1940), são colocadas em movimento dialético com a ‘fenomenologia’ e a ‘comunicação’, de Vilém Flusser (1920- 1991), em Los gestos, de fotografar entre distintos de ‘buscar’ a relação concreta entre o ‘sujeito conhecedor’, o ‘objeto cognoscível’ e a adaptação entre ambos, dando sentido ao que ‘move o observador’. Para novos modos de concretizar, ver, refletir sobre a arte, a ciência, a partir da dúvida que enfrenta o informe, no presente, a noção de ‘espaço’ como resultado da ligação ação-objeto-sujeito com a totalidade, vem da obra A natureza do espaço: técnica e tempo, razão e emoção, de Milton Santos (1926-2001). Na direção do recorte com resultados, foram incluídas as visões de mundo de artistas qual Albrecht Dürer (1471-1528) e Paul Klee (1879-1940), Kurt Schwitters (1887-1948) e Hannah Höch (1889-1978), da vanguarda alemã e dos contemporâneos norte-americanos Robert Smithson (1938-1973) e Gordon Matta-Clark (1943-1978), aptos a recordar o que pensavam fazer.
If what existed and was photographed in the urban landscape has allowed the incorporation of what has become visible in the artifacts named Poetic documents, in the art collection and in the curatorial of exhibitions of Art Museum Ado Malagoli at Rio Grande do Sul (2011-2014), as The poor canon: the precariousness of archeology in fine arts; in contrast, this has led to the organization of Imaginal reports corresponding to the Collection Objects for research in Fine Arts, which exist, were photographed during the experiment, and for their historical bias, were incorporated in the collection of the Paranaense Museum as well as socialized in the Pergamum (2012-2014). This methodological principle of structuring research on the photographic gesture as a creative act in transitional spaces, of the museum actions taken by human beings in relation to surrounding objects, has assured intelligent degrees of interaction beyond the era of our city Curitiba, in the south of Brazil. In this long lasting work in progress, fragmentary, because it is open and communicable as its destination should be, the sharp goal is to show and tell something where entropy and ruin may be seen in the form of art in the observed process from the start. The notions of ‘transience’, found in the book Origin of the german baroque drama; of ‘progress’ and ‘updating’, in the Book of passages, in which are displayed, respectively, the roles of “rolls” D [Boredom, the eternal return] e N [Theory of knowledge, theory of progress], both writings by Walter Benjamin (1892-1940), are placed in dialectical movement with the ‘phenomenology’ and ‘communication’, by Vilém Flusser (1920-1991), in The Gestures, of photographing between differences of ‘searching for’ the concrete relationship between the ‘knowledgeable subject’, the ‘knowable object’ and adaptation between them, giving meaning to what ‘moves the observer’. For new ways of realizing, seeing, reflecting on the art, science, staring from doubt that emerges from the report, at present, the notion of ‘space’ as a result of the binding relationship action-object- subject with totality, comes from the work The nature of space: technique and time, reason and emotion, by Milton Santos (1926- 001). In the direction of the clipping with results, were included worldviews of artists such as Albrecht Dürer (1471-1528) and Paul Klee (1879- 1940), Kurt Schwitters (1887-1948) and Hannah Höch (1889-1978), of the German avant- garde and of the contemporary Americans Robert Smithson (1938-1973) and Gordon Matta- Clark (1943-1978), all able to remember what they thought to do.

Essa dissertação tem como objetivo principal identificar os mecanismos envolvidos na inserção da fotografia documental em museus de arte, durante a década de 1970, na cidade de São Paulo. São apresentados três estudos de caso sobre exposições fotográficas, de caráter temático, realizadas nesse período: A família Brasileira, realizada no Museu de Arte de São Paulo, em 1971; Xingu/Terra, parte integrante da 13ª Bienal Internacional de São Paulo, em 1975; e Bom retiro e luz: um roteiro, na Pinacoteca do Estado de São Paulo, em 1976. A análise dos formatos das mostras e dos processos envolvidos em sua realização revelam dissonâncias e consonâncias entre os objetivos e interesses de seus proponentes e/ou realizadores. As exposições também são investigadas do ponto de vista das relações políticas da época, pois há a intenção de identificar as funções sociais adquiridas pela fotografia em seu processo de institucionalização.
This dissertation aims to identify the main mechanisms involved in the inclusion of documentary photography in art museums during the 1970s, in São Paulo. It presents three case studies about thematic and essay format photo exhibitions, accomplished at this period: A família brasileira, held at the Museu de Arte de Sao Paulo, in 1971; Xingu/Terra, part of the 13th Bienal International São Paulo, in 1975, and Bom retiro e luz: um roteiro in the Pinacoteca do Estado de Sao Paulo, in 1976. The analysis about the exhibitions formats and processes involved in their realization reveals dissonances and consonances between the purposes and interests of their proponents and/or directors. The exhibitions are also investigated from the standpoint of political relations of the time, because the intention is to identify the social functions of photography acquired in the process of its institutionalization.

Les images exposées sous l’appellation de photographie latino-américaine varient selon les expositions où commissaires et critiques déterminent les critères qui légitiment la sélection et l’organisation des images. Seuls des partis pris curatoriaux semblent ainsi gouverner des choix dont les enjeux éthiques et esthétiques diffèrent et découper les expositions par des catégories thématiques et des textes exégétiques des œuvres où, depuis les années 1990, l’usage récurrent des termes « histoire », « mémoire » et « identité » contribue à attribuer des significations moins géographiques qu’historiques à l’adjectif latino-américain. Nous nous proposons de montrer comment des expériences du temps sont configurées par les artistes dans leurs images par bien des modalités plastiques, comment les images sont capables d’établir, depuis et en fonction du présent, des rapports avec le passé. Selon une approche sémantico-pragmatique, nous analysons les références employées dans les images et dans les textes pour mesurer les implications contextuelles des rapports temporels, tandis que les modalités plastiques qui les traduisent nous permettent d’en interpréter le sens
During an exhibition, images displayed under the rubric of Latin-American photography vary according to the criteria retained by both curators and critics who legitimate their selection as well as their organisation. Curatorial biases can on their own determine choices with changing ethical and aesthetic implications and thus influence the shape taken on by exhibitions according to the thematic categories retained and the textual commentaries proposed for works whose Latin-American meanings, ever since the 1990s, are less affected by geographical considerations than by historical ones. In this thesis, it is our intention to show, first, how artists, using a plethora of plastic means, impart shape and form to experiences of time and, second, how images, through and according to the present moment, can establish various relationships with the past. Enlisting a semantic-pragmatic approach, we analyse the references established by images and texts in order to measure the contextual implications borne by their temporal relations; at the same time, the plastic modalities given to these temporalities allow us to interpret their meaning

Cette thèse s’interroge sur l’invention d’une formule : The Eye Club. Inventée par l’historienne américaine Eugenia Parry, elle désigne un regroupement actif dans les années 1960-1990 composé de : Pierre Apraxine, Hugues Autexier, François Braunschweig, Françoise Heilbrun, André Jammes, Gérard Lévy, Harry Lunn, Philippe Néagu, Alain Paviot, Richard Pare, Sam Wagstaff et Robert Mapplethorpe. Ces douze figures vivent entre la France et les États-Unis et sont rattachées par plusieurs facteurs culturels et temporels. Ce «club» n’est pas à proprement parler un cercle de sociabilités, c’est une constellation, une nébuleuse faite de positionnements culturels épars et de projets artistiques divers. La question principale qui a guidé cette enquête est la suivante : en quoi ce Eye Club et ses acteurs, pris individuellement, ont-t-ils contribué à réévaluer la valeur commerciale, esthétique et institutionnelle, de la photographie dans les années 1960-1990 entre Paris et New York ? La chronologie démarre avec les engagements d’André Jammes dans le monde de la photographie au tournant des années 1960 et se termine en 1989, l’année de la mort de Mapplethorpe. L’enquête réalisée dans les archives et auprès des acteurs a fait émerger des noms connus, et d’autres, qui sont demeurés dans les coulisses de l’histoire. Cette étude se propose de lever le voile sur un réseau interdépendant d’acteurs, dont les intérêts communs pour la photographie ont permis de créer le marché de la photographie, tel que nous le connaissons aujourd’hui, et son institutionnalisation. Le premier volume de la thèse propose, dans une perspective transatlantique, une réflexion sur ce regroupement à partir des images et des correspondances. Le second volume rassemble vingt-quatre entretiens réalisés au cours des cinq années de recherche. D’abord avec les figures du Eye Club (Pierre Apraxine, Françoise Heilbrun, Richard Pare et Alain Paviot), puis avec les familles des acteurs du Eye Club et enfin avec diverses personnalités du monde photographique (Frish Brandt, Peter Bunnell, Denis Canguilhem, Sylviane De Decker, Viviane Esders, Patrick Faigenbaum, Philippe Garner, Maria Morris Hambourg, Susan Kismaric, Hans Peter Kraus Jr., Harold Jones, Baudoin Lebon, Eugenia Parry, Françoise Reynaud, Samia Saouma et Daniel Wolf). Ensemble, les deux volumes esquissent une histoire de rencontres entre des passionnés de photographie qui s’est principalement articulée sous une forme orale entre la France et les États-Unis dans les années 1960-1980
This thesis questions the invention of a phrase : The Eye Club. Invented by the American historian Eugenia Parry, it has been designating a grouping active in the 1960s-1980s composed of : Pierre Apraxine, Hugues Autexier, François Braunschweig, Françoise Heilbrun, André Jammes, Gérard Lévy, Harry Lunn, Philippe Néagu, Alain Paviot, Richard Pare, Sam Wagstaff and Robert Mapplethorpe. These twelve characters lived between France and the United States and are connected and related by several cultural and temporal factors. This grouping is not, strictly speaking, a circle of sociability, it is rather a constellation or a nebula made of scattered cultural positions and diverse artistic projects. The main question that guided this survey is the following: in what way does the Eye Club and its individual actors contributed to the re-evaluation of the commercial, aesthetic and institutional value of photography between the early 1960s and the late 1990s among Paris and New York ? The chronology begins with André Jammes' involvement in the world of photography and ends in 1989, the year of Mapplethorpe's death. An inquiry of archives and key players has brought to light some well-known names, and others that remained in the shadow of history. This study aims at unveiling an interdependent network of actors, whose common interests in photography have made it possible to establish, in one generation, the photography market as we know it today. The first volume of the thesis offers, from a transatlantic perspective; an investigation and analysis of this based on photographs and correspondences. The second volume brings together twenty-four interviews conducted over my five years of doctoral research. First with the main protagonists of The Eye Club (Pierre Apraxine, Françoise Heilbrun, Richard Pare and Alain Paviot), then with the families of The Eye Club and finally with various personalities from the world of photography (Frish Brandt, Peter Bunnell, Denis Canguilhem, Sylviane De Decker, Viviane Esders, Patrick Faigenbaum, Philippe Garner, Maria Morris Hamburg, Susan Kismaric, Hans Peter Kraus Jr, Harold Jones, Baudoin Lebon, Eugenia Parry, Françoise Reynaud, Samia Saouma and Daniel Wolf). Together, the two volumes sketch a history of encounters between photography enthusiasts that has, up to now, been mainly articulated in oral form between France and the United States in the 1960s and 1980s

Cette thèse traite de l’histoire des projets de musées de photographie en France entre 1850 et 1945. Elle a pour ambition d’étudier et de circonscrire les diverses conceptions du musée photographique – documentaire, artistique, historique, technique, etc. – et leur histoire. Entre la fin du XIXe siècle et la Seconde Guerre mondiale, coexistent deux idées principales dans la conception du musée photographique : ce que nous appellerons « musée des photographies », où la photographie constitue avant tout le moyen d’une encyclopédie ou documentation visuelle, et ce que nous nommerons d’autre part « musée de la photographie », voué à la photographie pour elle-même, non pas en tant qu’instrument d’enregistrement du réel, mais en tant que médium. Cette ambiguïté de conception – la photographie est-elle l’outil ou le sujet du musée ? – est inhérente à la pensée des relations entre photographie et musée et sera l’un des fils rouges de cette étude. Face à l’absence de réalisation de ces projets, qui pour certains ont été expérimentés mais jamais pérennisés, ce travail interroge les causes de ces échecs institutionnels. Il s’articule autour de trois périodes chronologiques qui permettent de retracer les évolutions majeures de ces projets : les années 1850-1880 qui sont celles de la rencontre entre la photographie et les musées ; les années 1880-1910, celles des «musées rêvés de la photographie», qui voient le développement de plusieurs formes muséales ; enfin la période de l’entre-deux-guerres, pendant laquelle on assiste à l’émergence d’une véritable bataille du musée de la photographie
This doctoral dissertation treats the history of the projects of museums of photography in France between 1850 and 1945. It aims to study and identify the various conceptions of the photographic museum - documentary, artistic, historical, technical, etc. – and their history. Between the late nineteenth century and the Second World War, two main ideas coexist in the design of photographic museum: what we shall call "museum of photographs," where photography is first and foremost the means of a visual encyclopedia or documentation, and on the other hand what we shall call a "museum of photography" dedicated to photography for its own sake, not as a means of recording reality, but as a medium. This conceptual ambiguity – Is photography the tool or the subject of the museum ? — is inherent in the relationship between the photograph and the museum, and is one of the principle lines of inquiry in this study. This work examines the causes of these institutional failures given the lack of implementation of these projects, some of which were tried but never continued. It hinges on three chronological periods that trace the major developments of these projects : the years between 1850-1880, where photography and the museum meet; the years of the 'imagined museums photography’ in 1880-1910 where we can see various museum forms develop; and finally, the Interwar period which can be considered as the moment where the true battle for the museum of photography emerged

Cette étude porte sur les expositions photographiques produites par le gouvernement américain entre 1935 et 1942. Ces expositions avaient pour but de promouvoir les activités entreprises par l’administration Roosevelt dans le cadre de son programme de relance économique. L’étude est constituée de trois grandes parties : la première présente les enjeux politiques et sociaux du New Deal et éclaire les défis auxquels les propagandistes du gouvernement Roosevelt ont été confrontés. Elle montre alors l’intérêt et la fonction que la photographie et l’exposition ont eu dans le programme de propagande. La seconde présente le rôle joué par les expositions universelles dans le développement des techniques scénographiques employées par l’administration. La dernière porte sur les expositions artistiques du gouvernement et sur leur valeur propagandiste
This study focuses on photographic exhibitions produced by the US government between 1935 and 1942. These exhibitions aimed to publicize the Roosevelt administration’s economic stimulus program. The study is divided into three parts. The first part outlines the political and social issues of the New Deal while shedding light on the challenges faced by the propagandists in the Roosevelt administration, as well as the appeal and function of photography and exhibitions in its propaganda program. The second part considers the role played by world fairsin the development of design techniques employed by the administration. The final section addresses the government’s artistic exhibitions and their value as propaganda

Cette thèse vise à étudier des egodocuments dans une période de transformations politiques et sociales qui s’étend des années 1890 aux années 1930. Notre réflexion se base sur des études de cas : un journal intime, des agendas, des lettres, des carnets de famille, des albums de photographies, des photographies d’intérieurs ainsi qu’une corpus de sources publiées. A partir de la fin du XIXe siècle de nouvelles formes de représentation de soi se développaient dans l’Empire ottoman, souvent reliées aux discours politiques émergents. La diffusion de la photographie et des nouvelles techniques de reproduction des textes et des images a certainement contribué au développement de ces nouvelles formes de représentation. Notre objectif est d’analyser dans une démarche englobante des moyens écrits et visuels de représentation de soi qui s’entremêlaient dans la plupart des cas. L’étude de cette documentation permet d’analyser à l’échelle individuelle la façon dont les sujets de cette étude ont fait l’expérience d’un monde en transformation, comment ils/elles ont construit et gardé leurs souvenirs, comment ils/elles se sont projetés au futur dans une époque de bouleversements politiques et sociaux. Cela nous permet aussi de suivre la circulation transnationale des objets et des pratiques, ainsi que les manières avec lesquelles ils sont adaptés et réappropriés par une « nouvelle base sociale ». Nos sources sont l’objet-même de notre étude. L’intérêt est aussi bien porté sur la matérialité et les usages de ces documents que sur ce qu’ils nous apprennent sur l’expérience, les émotions, les sens, la mise-en-scène ou la performance de soi que mettent en œuvre chacun.e.s de nos auteurs
This thesis aims to study egodocuments in a period of political and social transformations, from the 1890s to the 1930s. Our study is based on case studies: A diary, almanacs, letters, photo albums, interior photographies as well as a series of published sources. From the end of the 19th century, new forms of self-representation developed in the Ottoman Empire, often related to emergent political discourses. The diffusion of photography and the new techniques of reproduction of texts and images contributed to the development of these new forms of self-representation. Our aim is to analyze written and visual tools of self-representation, that are most of the time intermingled, in an all-encompassing approach. The study of this documentation enables us to analyze, at the individual level, the ways in which the subjects of this study made experience of a world in transformation, constructed and preserved their memories, imagined their future. This also allows us to follow the transnational circulation of objects and practices, as well as their adaption and reappropriation by a “new social base”. Our sources are also the objects of our study. We are also interested in the materialities and uses of these documents as well as in what they tell us on the experiences, emotions, senses and the mise-en-scène or the performance of the self

Research submitted in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the Degree of Master of Fine Arts at the University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, March 2017
The creative component of the research project explores, through the medium of sculpture, the notion of the liminal, with a particular focus on themes of the absurd and the unstable as characteristics of liminality. These themes may be useful for investigating and providing a valuable source for critical assessment, so as to allow for the opening of and extending of debates on reading and thinking about art regarded as ‘in-between’ the poles of a binary opposition. Broadly, it seeks to explore the historical trajectory of the 1960s artist Eva Hesse in relation to these themes, and how it resonates with my own sculpture-making and development. The aim of the written research is, therefore, through engaging with a close critical and theoretically informed reading of selected examples of Hesse’s work, to identify themes and approaches which may inform and advance the understanding of my own work produced in the context of this study. Connections will be drawn to the way in which these themes facilitate a favourable space in which the making of art flourishes. As far as viewers are concerned, such work may encourage the viewer to be an active participant in a dimension of human experience potentially not yet encountered, thereby liberating viewers’ fixed and rigid perceptual constructs. Entering into a discussion of the themes of liminality, the absurd and unstable, serves this aim.
XL2018

A dissertation in fulfilment of the Degree of Masters of Arts in Fine Arts (MAFA) at the University of Witwatersrand, 2017
In 2012, the Johannesburg-based artists’ collective, Center for Historical Reenactments (CHR), presented Fr(agile), a social sculpture and public intervention, following a threeday residency at the Alf Kumalo Museum in Diepkloof, Soweto. The Fr(agile) Residency intended to reimagine the archive by searching it for points of interest related to visual artmaking. This research dissertation aims to revisit Fr(agile) in order to explore new ways of engaging the photographic archive, and artist-led processes and methodologies within this archive. The archive was never completely sorted although Kumalo had, had intentions of properly cataloguing his archive and had begun the process of digitising his photographs at his museum. With the archive closed for legal reasons, this research will draw on memory and account, and this dissertation will be presented orally. I feel it is necessary to remember what the archive was like during the residency, but to also propose ways to activate the archive through contemporary visual arts practice. The research further proposes ways in which archives can occupy a space within contemporary visual arts, how they can potentially function when looked at as contemporary objects, and begin to question the ephemeral relationship between the photographic medium, archive and memory.
XL2018

A research report submitted to the Faculty of Humanities University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts (History of Art), 2017
This research was instigated by a collection of uncollected portraits (completed and incomplete), photographs, letters, papers, documents, passbooks, and other materials, left behind when an airbrush portraiture studio, The Aqua Portrait Studio, closed in about 1998 after fifty years of continuous business. The portraits were created by enlarging small original photos – sometimes from two separate sources – and then colouring them with an airbrush and other materials. Because of the nature of the airbrush technique, it was possible to change the original image completely: to clothe the sitters in completely imaginary attire, for example, and pose them together with someone they had possibly never been photographed with. This process gave rise to a genre in which people could re-imagine themselves, enact other personas. Because the fifty years of existence of this studio almost coincided with the years of apartheid (the studio was open from about 1950 to about 1998), it seemed that the collection of uncollected images and notes left behind could be a source of rich information about the people who were the studio's clients, the process of acquiring airbrushed portraits, and the social and historical context in which those involved lived. I start with three fundamental questions: Since this portraiture form grew so exponentially in popularity, especially during the apartheid years, what specific significance and meaning had it taken on for the communities who were buying the portraits? What need was it meeting? What can we learn about these lives from this collection? The research takes two forms. First, it closely interrogates the material objects in the collection; and second, it tracks the routes of clients and salesmen to what were some of the former homelands of the northern part of South Africa. Both these investigations attempt to understand the possible roles and contribution of these pictures to the construction and reconstruction of self-identity under apartheid.
XL2018

University of the Witwatersrand Masters Research Report History of Art 31 March 2015
Landscape representations in Western art have long stood as metaphors for power relations inscribed on the earth, encoding imperial aspirations, national identity, poetic and aesthetic experiences about humankind, nature and the environment. However, contemporary landscape imagery of large-scale industrial, and particularly mining sites, have come to signify, pre-dominantly through the medium of photography, meta-narratives that go beyond the political, economic, and environmental power relations historically endemic to landscape representation. Indeed, I suggest they constitute the formation of a sub-genre within the category of Landscape. Mining activities characterise extensive landscape interventions, often with catastrophic results both above and below ground. Perhaps a mined landscape more than any other, exemplifies not only the interwoven political and economic power relations inscribed upon the land, but also testifies to the underlying pathology of the land. Contemporary landscape studies cut across disciplines and go beyond the apprehension of surface, taking into account the geological as well social histories of land, and thus signal a shift in the aesthetic experience of land, both emotionally and intellectually, and consequently the way in which land is made visible. The visualisation of these land sites through imagery has precipitated an interface of aesthetic experience that simultaneously makes visible the politics symbolically encoded in the landscape itself, and the politics that impact viewership and reception. Nevertheless, accompanying the need to make visible those land sites hugely modified by mineral extraction, from both a historical and current perspective, is an unprecedented urgency that is weighted by a political anxiety over future implications of such land interventions. This anxiety is driven by the spectral nature of mined landscapes. Although monumental in scale, mined landscapes are often ‘not seen’, partly because they exist in restricted zones or are located underground, but often they are rendered invisible through a process of assimilation and naturalisation. A case in point has been the collective presence of mine dumps along Johannesburg’s southern periphery, and which, now in the process of being re-cycled, form the focus of my selected case study, an image by British photographer, Jason Larkin and titled Re-Mining Dump 20 (2012). By seeking to bring sites of mining activity into public consciousness, contemporary representations of mined landscapes also mediate current relations between humankind and the natural environment. As an agent of mediation, I propose that an image of a mined landscape functions as an interface. By situating Larkin’s image within a theoretical framework motivated by Jacques Rancière’s politics of aesthetics and Malcolm Andrews and W.J.T. Mitchell’s landscape theory, I proceed with my investigation in the form of a two-part interrogation: one that places emphasis on theory followed by a practical, creative response to Larkin’s image by way of repeat photography of Dump 20 and its surrounds. To demonstrate the concept of interface, I ‘excavate’ the aesthetic experience of Dump 20 as both sensory apprehension and through Rancière’s lens of emancipated viewership. There is an aesthetic quality of the sublime that appears to pervade visual representations of mined landscapes. Described as industrial sublime, toxic sublime or even apocalyptic sublime, the attention-holding quality these images exercise, through a strategy of aesthetic appeal, contribute to a politics of visibility by subversively implicating the viewer as a member of the human race. Global citizenship overrides national identity in these landscape representations, disrupting a sense of belonging with one of complicit participation in the formation of mined landscapes through reliance on mineral extraction for manufacturing consumer goods. Not only do representations of mined landscapes demand a rethink about aesthetic appreciation of landscape imagery and the endemic political connotations implicated in an understanding of landscape. They actively seek to penetrate surface visibility of land by taking into account the very pathology of land as an on going narrative of human and environmental interaction and life continually in process.

This dissertation considers photographs of American Indians in Parisian exhibitions between 1870 and 1890 as part of a mobile and dynamic visual culture in the larger Atlantic World and as the embodiment of performative cross-cultural encounters. The project analyzes western American survey photographs disseminated abroad, as well as pictures of Native performers taken in the French capital. The study ranges from John K. Hillers’s output for John Wesley Powell and William Henry Jackson’s work for Ferdinand V. Hayden to the photographic albums of Prince Roland Bonaparte, the grandnephew of Napoleon I. Active in French scientific circles, Bonaparte photographed Plains Indian performers in 1880s Paris. Working within the developing fields of American and French anthropology, these photographers and their project directors transmitted pictures internationally in order to present their respective nations as scientific and political powers and showcase American Indians as figures of competing national patrimonies. Composed of four case studies based on exhibitions, the study challenges readings grounded solely on the original imperialist intentions of the objects’ producers. Instead, a transcultural perspective examines American Indian agendas and circumstances in these photographic exchanges. The dissertation also traces the changing meaning of these pictures over time. Chapter One analyzes a set of Hillers’s photographs of Hopi villages sent to the Société de géographie de Paris in 1877 by Powell as part of an international competition to claim authority regarding Southwest cultures. Chapter Two examines Jackson and Hayden’s Photographs of North American Indians (1878) similarly given to the Société d’anthropologie de Paris in 1879 in this culture of rivalry. However, a close reading of the volumes’ delegation portraits disrupts the imperialist framing of its text. Chapter Three explores Bonaparte’s album, Peaux-Rouges (1884) of frontal and profile photographs of Umonhon (Omaha) at the Jardin d’acclimatation and argues that references to performance and histories of contact subvert its essentializing physical anthropology approach. Chapter Four reads Bonaparte’s volumes of Buffalo Bill’s Wild West in Paris for the 1889 Exposition Universelle. Here, allusions to intercultural exchanges of the Lakota performers abroad, as show members and tourists, also challenge a hegemonic interpretation of Bonaparte’s anthropological photographs.
2020-01-25

The creation of exhibits and exhibit-going have been part of popular culture for centuries and have long been hallmarks of outreach to new audiences for archival services. With the explosion of digital technologies there are many new and exciting avenues for archivists to create exhibitions to display their collections and engage with their users. Websites such as Facebook, Instagram, Tumbler and Flickr as well as increasingly diverse website functionalities have greatly contributed to a new understanding of visual literacy both within and outside the archival profession. Web 2.0 technologies and web analytics have opened up opportunities for archives to curate their records in many different ways for much larger audiences. This study will examine how visual records, specifically the archival photographs from the Lewis B. Foote fonds at the Archives of Manitoba, could be used to commemorate the First World War and shape our understanding of it. During the centennial anniversary of the war it is important to study how such images relating to this conflict might be used today to create specific narratives for understanding it through archival outreach activities such as exhibitions. This can help us rethink the aims and characteristics of archival exhibitions, thereby shedding greater light on the role of archives in creating public memory and enhancing societal understanding of archives and their relevance to important public interests.
October 2015

Submitted in fulfilment of the Degree of Master of Arts (Fine Arts) Johannesburg, March 2017
This dissertation uses David Goldblatt’s seminal photobook, On the Mines (1973, revised 2012) to mediate a biographical conversation with Raymond Zavala, a migrant mineworker who left Mozambique in 1962 to live and work in Johannesburg. On the Mines was used as a vehicle to examine intimate details of one man’s life in the mines, focusing particularly on a mine in Roodepoort known as Durban Deep, where Raymond worked for 38 years. During my visits with Raymond, On the Mines was kept in hand as he and I walked through what once was a prosperous mining town. We would discuss his day-to-day life as a migrant, mineworker, husband and father, and began layering and inserting our own stories and photographs over and into On the Mines in an attempt to portray a more personal account of one person’s life on the mines. Goldblatt’s photographic archive is crucial to this process in that it enabled me to initiate conversations with Raymond about his personal history, memory and identity. This research, encompassed in the visual biography presented here, was created in collaboration with Raymond. He guided me through this process by directing the narrative of his own story, recommending specific landscapes and people for me to meet and photograph.  I have chosen to present this practice in the form of a photobook, so that its concept and content can be shared as a critical resolution of my visual and narrative engagement.
XL2018

The Douglas Summerland Collection is a fictional "monographically based history"1. In essence this research is concerned with the current debates about history recording, authenticity of the photograph, methods of history construction and how the audience digests new 'knowledge'. The narrative for this body of work is drawn from a small album of maritime photographs discovered in 2004 within the archives of the Port Chalmers Regional Maritime Museum in New Zealand. The album contains vernacular images of life onboard several sailing ships from the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, including the DH Sterling and the William Mitchell. Through investigating the'truth' systems promoted by the photograph within the presentations of histories this research draws a link between the development of colonialism and the perception of photography. It also deliberates on how 'truth' perception is still a major part of an audience's knowledge base. 1. Anne-Marie Willis Picturing Australia: A History of Photography, Angus & Robertson Publishers, London. 1988:253

A research report submitted to the Faculty of Humanities, University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts (History of Art), March 2017
Within this research report, I explore how the (re-)integration of writing and photography enhances an understanding of the role of the personal within documentary practices. I focus on a portion of the Frobenius Archive as my case study, specifically the documents produced during the five-week Natal leg of the ninth expedition in early 1929. The German Leo Frobenius (b.1873–d.1938) was a primarily self-taught Africanist ethnographer, who had an interdisciplinary practice that blurred the boundaries between anthropology, archaeology and history. He conducted a total of twelve expeditions within Africa between 1904 and 1935, and his objective on these expeditions was to record ways of life that he felt were vulnerable to changes due to modernity. The documents collected during the Natal leg consist of field notes, photographs, hand-drawn pictures and diary entries. The field notes comprise of a set of eleven rock art site descriptions that have been constructed by the three artists: Maria Weyersberg, Elisabeth Mannsfeld and Agnes Schulz. Weyersberg’s diary entries provide a more impressionistic set of notes, tracking the day-today unfolding of their journey (but with many gaps). The subject matter of the photographs ranges from the rock art sites and the landscapes these sites are a part of, to the people they encountered along the way. I engaging with the concept of writing, particularly through the example of Weyersberg’s personal diaries, and the ways in which these entries relate to the photographs, creating a space in between where the personal relationships would have played themselves out. Within this research report I demonstrate that writing and photography can be brought back together in order to restore something of the original encounter and that this (re-)integration offers an opportunity for a new dialogue and a new understanding to be achieved.
MT2018

A dissertation submitted to the Faculty of Humanities, University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, in partial fulfilment of the degree of Masters of Arts in Fine Arts (MAFA) Johannesburg, 2017
This dissertation aims to examine Gerhard Richter and Serge Nitegeka’s artistic practices, in order to understand and identify how artists can potentially use space as a medium and contextualise my own practice within this realm. I position the conventions and principles of space through reference to French theorists’ Henri Lefebvre, Michel de Certeau and Michel Foucault. The thesis begins with a brief overview of the window as a painterly motif and spatially familiar everyday device in the introduction. In the first chapter, I explore the surface and reflection of the medium of glass, the colour gray, the monochrome, as well as the pictorial, in Gerhard Richter’s Eight Gray (2002). The second chapter examines the role of the frame or line in Serge Nitegeka’s Black Lines (2012), as an environment of experience that relies on painted diagrams and the illusion of perspectival space. The third chapter observes a shift in the manner in which Richter and Nitegeka experiment and extend their practices through an engagement with the mirror and the door, respectively, as ways of exploring the threshold. Finally, I discuss my own practice and reflect on the exhibition Through the Extent (2015), which was submitted as the practical component of this research.
XL2018

This research thesis, Do you Like My Pics, investigates perceived value in art through the recreation of well-known paintings. Using photography and photo-manipulation the content of the image has been recreated in another medium in order to dissociate the tangible, actual image from the aura of the artist who created it.

Through autoethnography, I am seeking to demonstrate how Cultural Connectedness can be developed from and in the secondary art room. My project comprises three parts, two visual exhibitions and an exegesis. The first exhibition consisted of paintings and prints around the theme of Creativity and how I am inspired by my environment at home, in my community and at work. This exhibition was called ‘Living Colour’. The second exhibition consisted of digital photographs taken in the classroom that were manipulated by Photoshop CS6 and collaged prior to the show and in situ to emphasise different meanings. This show was named ‘The Real Deal’. The exegesis fuses all aspects of the creative project and goes into depth about how my ideas were formed and how they were used to effect transformation in the secondary art room. I use the term ‘Cultural Connectedness’ to mean a feeling of completeness and confidence of themselves in their communities achieved by students through activities created in and through the visual arts.

As an alternative to existing research which states that the phenomenon of displacement resists theorisation because of its complex nature, this study conducts a Phenomenological examination of the nature of displacement in which the interlinked losses in the key concepts of the consciousness of the displaced, namely Memory, Land and home and Identity, are navigated. It is shown that the current consciousness of society mimics these losses with the effect of displacement being experienced as a state of mind by contemporary society. By comparing selected artworks of artists Rachel Whiteread and Cornelia Parker, it is established that although manifested in diverse ways, contemporary artworks reflect displacement according to a set of broadly defined visual signifiers. The visual documentation of a site of displacement in the North West Province of South Africa and subsequently produced artworks underline these findings and highlight the elusive attributes of loss inherent in the displacement phenomenon.
Art History, Visual Arts & Musicology
M.A. (Visual Arts)