Since hitting mass markets in the 1920s, refrigerators have occupied a lovable corner not just in American kitchens but also in American culture. The story of humankind has always been the story of food, around which we congregate, negotiate power, and explore methods of control. As the U.S. transitioned to industrial, mechanical convenience in the twentieth century, refrigerators replaced hearths as household communication centers, and it has become commonplace to decorate refrigerator surfaces with photographs, keepsakes, lists, and other items of visual culture. As meaningful, expressive arrangements, the curatorial dimensions of such displays have called for their investigation. From January to June of 2013, the Other White Cube Project studied the cultural phenomenon by collecting photographs and questionnaires online at theotherwhitecube.com. From 200 submissions, the project connected activities at home with institutional roles at large. The educational effort performed post-museum theory, in which audiences and institutions share power, build community, and promote awareness. By equating museums with everyday spaces, curators with everyday people, and art with everyday objects, the Other White Cube Project approached three keys to learning in art museums - comfort, relevance, and readability. The project also examined the aesthetic, social, and practical barometers that direct daily choices, which shape consciousness and subsequent interactions with space. In that sense, everyone is a curator - of some kind and of some place.

This research examines the ways in which the Vancouver Olympics emblem, an Inuit inuksuk, and other Aboriginal symbols have been ‘adopted’ by the organizers of the 2010 Winter Olympics, how visual and textual Aboriginal representations have been incorporated into the public education mandate of the Games, and how this relates to the Aboriginal Participation Goals of the Vancouver Organizing Committee (VANOC). I use Freirian critical cultural pedagogy and Foucauldian theories along with a visual research method, semiotic analysis, as a way to examine the material presented on the official Vancouver 2010 Olympic website and related websites.

During the interwar period in Iran and Egypt, local and regional manifestation of tajadod/al-jidida (modernity) as a “cultural identity crisis” created the nationalist image and practice of zan-e emrouzi-e shahri/al-mar’a al-jidida al-madani (the urban/secular “New Woman”). The dynamics of the process involved performance art, including the covert medium of journalism and the overt world of the performing arts of music, play, and cinema. The image of the “New Woman” as asl/al-asala (cultural authenticity) connected sonnat/al-sunna (tradition) with the global trends of modernism, linking pre-nineteenth century popular forms of performing arts to new genres, forms, and social experiences of the space of the performing arts. The subversive transnational character of performance art operated across borders to promote both the discourse of modern womanhood in-the-making among intellectuals, and the public practice of women’s presence among the masses. However, the trans-border effects of the medium were limited by local cultural and political ideologies of nationalism. The spectacle of women on the screen addressed national independence and the creation of a national film industry to resist the financial dominance of Europeans. In Iran, zan-e emrouzi-e shahri served the project of founding a modern nation-state, elevating of a culture of the city and urban development, and institutionalizing performing arts, mirroring the upholding of “male-guardianship.” In Egypt, in the absence of an authoritarian modern state and long-term experience of foreign occupations, al-mar’a al-jidida al-madani accompanied the traditional figure of bint al-balad (the countryside girl) to present modern advancements in film production with a traditional accent, to oppose European cultural values, to provide a tangible space for women’s multifaceted anti-colonial maneuvering, and to connect Egypt’s past history to its future. Performance art helped women to convey their cultural nationalism and a sense of imagined identity by letting them see and be seen by each other, create interactions between the artist and the audience, and emphasize music as the heart of a society’s culture and art. A culture of body performance, a female visual public sphere, and a feminine (and feminist) interpretation of cultural authenticity in performance art led women to claim the profession as a legitimate career.

Magistro darbe "Grafinio dizaino mokymą/si aktualizuojantys veiksniai" atskleidžiama grafinio dizaino mokymo/si svarba vizualiosios kultūros ugdymui, apžvelgiami grafinio dizaino mokymo/si šaltinių turinio ypatumai, tiriamas mokinių ir mokytojų požiūris bei išskiriami grafinio dizaino mokymą/si aktualizuojantys veiksniai. Dizainas — kūrybinė veikla, kurios tikslas yra „harmoningos daiktinės aplinkos, kuo visapusiškiau tenkinančios žmogaus materialinius ir dvasinius poreikius, formavimas“ (Mogilnickas, 1995) Savo esme dizainas yra „meno, mokslo ir technikos sintezė“ (Šiukščius, 2005). Dizaino šaka, apimanti vizualiosios informacijos dizainą, yra grafinis dizainas (plakatų, logotipų, etikečių kūrimas, bukletų, katalogų, knygų maketavimas, įpakavimo, reklaminių skydų projektavimas ir pan.). Išaugusi vizualiosios informacijos įtaka ir jos sklaida skatina grafinio dizaino gebėjimų ugdymo svarbą, nes postmoderniajame pasaulyje žmogus gauna daugiau vizualinės informacijos negu rašytinės, todėl itin svarbus vizualinės kultūros edukacinis reikšmingumas. Grafinio dizaino kūrybinis produktas tiesiogiai sąveikauja su meno vartotojais, veikia vizualiąją žmogaus kultūrą. Taigi grafinio dizaino mokymas/sis yra aktualus švietimo kontekste. Tačiau atlikus grafinio dizaino mokymo/si šaltinių turinio analizę nustatyta, jog grafiniam dizainui skiriamas dėmesys nėra pakankamas. Grafinio dizaino mokymui/si skirtas tik vienas vadovėlis, kuris ne visiškai atitinka tokio pobūdžio vadovėliams... [toliau žr. visą tekstą] / Thesis “Factors actualizing teaching and learning graphic design” unfolds importance of teaching and learning graphic design to visual culture training, reviews peculiarities of material content of teaching and learning graphic design, studies pupils’ and teachers attitude and makes out factors actualizing teaching and learning graphic design. Design is creative action, whose aim is “the formation of chime material setting, which versatilely supplies material and spiritual demands” (Mogilnickas, 1995). In essence, design is “synthesis of art, science and technique” (Siukscius, 2005). Branch of design, covering visual information design, is graphic design (design of posters, logos, labels, booklets, catalogues, pasting-up books, covering, advertisements and so on). Increased influence and dispersion of visual information stimulate importance of training graphic design skills. Because in the postmodern world man gets more visual information than written and educational significance of visual culture is very important. Creative product of graphic design works on art users directly and influences man’s visual culture. So teaching and learning graphic design is actual in the context of education. But after analysis of material content of teaching and learning graphic design is set, that attention to graphic design isn’t sufficient. Only one textbook is given for teaching and learning graphic design and it is not quite good with demands and aesthetic criterions for such kind of... [to full text]

This thesis examines the intersections of visual culture with processes of folklorization in Maritime Canada between 1964 and 2007. Throughout this thesis, I explore how visual culture helps make history public in the Maritimes for local and tourist audiences alike. Ultimately, I question which visions succeed when it comes to looking at this “region’s” past in order to visualize its future. I outline chapters that consider how Nova Scotia’s first provincial gallery, the Art Gallery of Nova Scotia (AGNS), labelled the cultural production of local self-taught artists “folk” art and, by collecting these objects, became the foremost expert in a category of artistic expression it had itself created; how the provincial state ideologically and economically invested in a certain “folk” aesthetic by gathering objects under the authority of a few prominent collectors; how those institutions and collectors who sought to develop contemporary folk art for the art market also became concerned with the new confrontation of a global mass culture by the last few decades of the twentieth century; how the AGNS transformed self-taught artist Maud Lewis from a local tourist attraction in the 1960s into an internationally recognized cultural icon by the 1990s through the institutionalization of her life story’s public history; and how those with state and corporate authority came to brand the Maritimes for global tourism at the turn of the twenty-first century, by employing what they understood to be the region’s strongest cultural resources. Part of my rationale here is to explore what it means to label the cultural production of self-taught artists “folk” art and the implications of state and corporate investment in this cultural form for the public narrative associated with the experience of culture in Maritime Canada. I posit a complex hegemonic relationship here between relatively powerful artworld professionals and relatively powerless self-taught artists that speaks both to the inequities and contradictions of a capitalist liberal order. In doing so, I also tackle the broader implications of writing “the history of region” in an age of “global” analyses. / Thesis (Ph.D, Art History) -- Queen's University, 2009-09-25 13:45:16.05

In this thesis, contemporary Native American images on skateboards that extend Native American art beyond such traditional crafts as beadworks and pottery are explored. The study reveals that Native American skateboard graphics express history, culture, and myths. Native American curriculum, Native American art, and Native American stereotyping in visual culture are critically examined. The purpose of the study is to provide additional Native American art and visual culture examples and methods for the development of Native American art curricula.

This thesis addresses why a comprehensive art education curriculum needs to merge with visual culture in order to better serve current elementary students today. The review of literature supports this theory and proves that the two approaches work together to make learning relevant and effective. The units of study provided make up a guideline that show teachers how to include visual culture into the current comprehensive art education structure. This allows students to bring their own ideas and experiences into the classroom, and results in making the visual arts more personal. Following this curriculum will help students own their education and ultimately gain higher level thinking and learning in the visual arts as well as other subject areas.

Using collage as a methodological and conceptual framework for re-conceptualizing knowledge in HIV/AIDS education, this thesis attends to young women’s understandings of HIV/AIDS and sexuality. Through engaging in the process of making collages, what stories do young women tell about HIV/AIDS? What discourses are produced when collage and narrative are used as methodological tools to address participants’ understandings of HIV/AIDS? By responding to their own collage texts, as well as the collage texts of others, how are issues of representation addressed? Using narrative and post-structural discourse analysis, this study explores how participants’ complex and contradictory understandings of HIV/AIDS diverge from the content and form of current school-based HIV/AIDS curriculum. Whereas the curriculum presupposes a rational and linear subject, participants’ reflexive understandings of HIV/AIDS shift throughout the study, varying as a result of roles performed, the context of the collage or image being discussed, and the dynamic interchange between participants.

Using collage as a methodological and conceptual framework for re-conceptualizing knowledge in HIV/AIDS education, this thesis attends to young women’s understandings of HIV/AIDS and sexuality. Through engaging in the process of making collages, what stories do young women tell about HIV/AIDS? What discourses are produced when collage and narrative are used as methodological tools to address participants’ understandings of HIV/AIDS? By responding to their own collage texts, as well as the collage texts of others, how are issues of representation addressed? Using narrative and post-structural discourse analysis, this study explores how participants’ complex and contradictory understandings of HIV/AIDS diverge from the content and form of current school-based HIV/AIDS curriculum. Whereas the curriculum presupposes a rational and linear subject, participants’ reflexive understandings of HIV/AIDS shift throughout the study, varying as a result of roles performed, the context of the collage or image being discussed, and the dynamic interchange between participants.

For a long time, Roman ideal sculptures have primarily been studied within the tradition of Kopienkritik. Owing to some of the theoretical assumptions tied to this practice, several important aspects of Roman visual culture have been neglected as the overall aim of such research has been to gain new knowledge regarding assumed Classical and Hellenistic models. This thesis is a collection of three studies on Roman ideal sculpture. The articles share three general aims: 1. To show that the practice of Kopienkritik has, so far, not produced convincing interpretations of the sculpture types and motifs discussed. 2. To show that aspects of the methodology tied to the practice of Kopienkritik (thorough examination and comparison of physical forms in sculptures) can, and should, be used to gain insights other than those concerning hypothetical Classical and Hellenistic model images. 3. To present new interpretations of the sculpture types and motifs studied, interpretations which emphasize their role and importance within Roman visual culture. The first article shows that reputed, post-Antique restorations may have an unexpected—and unwanted—impact on the study of ancient sculptures. This is examined by tracing the impact that a restored motif ("Satyrs with cymbals") has had on the study of an ancient sculpture type: the satyr ascribed to the two-figure group "The invitation to the dance". The second article presents and interprets a sculpture type which had previously gone unnoticed—The satyrs of "The Palazzo Massimo-type". The type is interpreted as a variant of "The Marsyas in the forum", a motif that was well known within the Roman cultural context. The third article examines how, and why, two motifs known from Classical models were changed in an eclectic fashion once they had been incorporated into Roman visual culture. The motifs concerned are kalathiskos dancers, which were transformed into Victoriae, and pyrrhic dancers, which were also reinterpreted as mythological figures—the curetes. / <p>At the time of the doctoral defense, the following papers were unpublished and had a status as follows: Paper 1: Accepted. Paper 3: Accepted.</p>