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A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man is viewed traditionally by many critics and scholars alike more or less, if not entirely, as Joyce’s autobiographical novel. The identity of the narrator and his relationship to the focalizer and the narrative text are aspects that have thus not been sufficiently examined and explored. An analysis of the passage when Stephen clarifies to himself his relationship to words which makes possible the revelation of his calling as an artist will reveal the intimacy of the narrator and Stephen, indicating they are one and the same. But it will also disclose the structure of the narration of Portrait to be the result of Stephen’s very discovery of the meaning of words to him. And the view of Stephen as a narrator, as well as the main focalizer, turns Portrait into a work of fictional autobiography. His thoughts and contemplations monopolize the narration, granting him exclusive authority over the presentation of his story. Furthermore, the suggestion in the title of the novel that he is also the writer begs the question of reliability. Can Stephen’s story be trusted, or is Portrait a fabrication of his childhood in order to convince the world that he really was born to become an artist? The opening and ending of the novel suggest that the narrative is not “based on a true story” of Stephen’s life but instead that it is composed in the fantasy world which Stephen withdraws into as his meagre output does not meet his expectations. Thus Stephen writes his first novel entitled A Portrait with which he hopes to achieve the fame and receive the recognition he desires. But Stephen is still a struggling artist when the narrative finishes, hence the ambiguous ending as Stephen is the novel itself, its inconclusive narrative. Stephen’s A Portrait is a glorious act of self-creation.

Seeing one’s self in another requires empathy and compassion. A person must be willing to look beyond their immediate self and feel what is not readily perceptible. Difference is merely an edifice constructed by our faith in perception. By transfiguring what is familiar an alternative now is made available to the mind and reveals an underlying essence common in all people and things. We realize physical separation is an illusion of the material world and that everything exists from one sacred source.

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This thesis draws on previous engagements between art and Geography in experimental geographies to explore relationships between artists and different forms of institutions. It focuses on experimental artists and associated experimental artist-led collectives, which I term ‘artist-led groups’, to explore how these artists and groups have experimented with different forms of institutions’ as part of their work around science and technology. These experimental artists and groups draw on successive waves of institutional critique in the art world, alongside forms of social practice, to ask key spatial and social questions of institutions. This thesis explores the approaches these experimental artist-led groups and two other key artists have used to experiment with key facets of institutions, allowing them to ask critical questions of science and technology. In doing so, this thesis demonstrates creative approaches to engaging publics around science and technology which offer potential for expanding inter- and cross-disciplinary conversations in geographical discourse. This thesis uses an experimental methodology combining a form of artistic practice as research method on the one hand and ethnographic methods on the other. It combines these methods as part of an ethnography to explore how these artist-led groups associate with one another in a social network. The thesis then focuses on two experimental artists in this social network whose works are becoming increasingly heard within geographical discourse. These experimental artist-led groups and artists are shown to operate different creative approaches when engaging with institutions. I show these in three ways, showing how 1) artist-led groups experiment with different modes of institutions to bring contemporary science and technology issues into the public realm; 2) experimental artist Neal White uses artistic experiments to critique science and technology; and 3) experimental artist Richard Pell uses his Center for PostNatural History to experiment with ways of prompting public discussions around science and technology. Accordingly, this thesis argues that these experimental engagements highlight the benefit of inter- and cross-disciplinary conversations in better understanding and shaping institutions. For geographers, this experimental approach can create novel forms of knowledge to help better understand the social nature and implications of institutions.

Combining artistic practice with teaching is not unusual for teachers in the visual arts. A dual professional practice, which can be found throughout the field of art education with art teachers in all levels of education, requires a negotiation of roles and positions on a personal level and has impact on pedagogy. However, the binary opposition of artist versus teacher fails to comprise the diversity of practices where art making and teaching are combined. Not only does identification with artist or teacher vary, so does the extent to which the two disciplines are fused, to the point where it can be called a hybrid practice when the distinction between art and teaching is no longer relevant. The democratic nature of contemporary visual art making further problematises a singular model of artist teacher practice. In order to do justice to the personal strategies artist teachers employ in balancing their dual professional roles, this thesis proposes a multifaceted concept of artist teacher practice. In this thesis, the notion of hybridity and diversity in artist teacher practice and the implications for democratic models of teaching and learning is subject to both theoretical, empirical, and artistic inquiry. The employment of different lenses enables a multi-layered approach to a complex practice. By focusing on the knowledge incorporated in the practice of two Dutch artist teachers this thesis informs how artist teacher practice relates to models of democratic teaching and learning. The miniature dioramas visually explore my own perception of democratic learning spaces and add an extra auto-ethnographic layer of understanding to artist teacher pedagogy. Central in this thesis is the notion of a pedagogical thirdspace. A spatial representation of social realities helps to create a critical understanding of human life. A thirdspace is a place in the margins between reality and ideals (Soja, 1999). When binary models of understanding are exchanged for real-life knowledge of the pedagogical practice of artist teachers an ambiguous open space emerges, where there is room for experiential learning, uncertainty, risk-taking, care, equality, inclusion, tacit experience, sensitivity, play, flexibility, and conflict. The engaged pedagogy (hooks, 1994) of artist teachers emancipates learners because of the fact that the duality of the artist teacher invites learners to join in a democratic, living model of artistic practice.

Artist Statement

In the way of museums, certain things have been collected and assembled for a display, a truth, in the form of a private room in which resides the dream world of the curator. Then, as the visual expression of this inner space deepens, they are carefully taken apart, always with respect for the original. Yet the work is not shaped by the hand of a conservator destined to abandon the imagination in favour of a trail of physical evidence. Nor does it reflect the conventional rationalist sensibilities of a museum worker who, by suppressing a poetic understanding of the world is confined by "cold language" (Frame 1992 p.45) and remains caught inextricably in the web of colonial thinking.Here the imagination is truth (Einzig 1996) and an understanding of the nature of this inner space the key to the locked door. The Anthropologist and the Archaeologist, indeed a whole host of disciplinary specialists may come knocking, but it is the artist that gains access to the curatorial spirit. Compelled as much by a love of the museum profession as a crisis of European consciousness (Spivak in Harasym 1990), objects are assembled for an inner journey to a place where shadow and sunlight chase each other across the landscape (McQueen 2000). This is the dialectic space of both curator and artist, of the rational and the irrational, of inside and outside, and of disciplinary devotion and betrayal.

Master of Visual Arts / My research paper is an attempt to begin to articulate and document my lived experience of being both a mother and an artist. Underpinned by research into the cultural and social history of the experience of mothering and the cultural institution of ‘motherhood’, I revisit and reinterpret some of my earlier works, and explore issues of identity brought up by the relational experience of mothering. I seek out other women who are, or have been, both mothers and artists – particularly sculptors – whose work relates to their subjective experiences of mothering. From them I select and investigate both works, and reflections, which I feel resonate with my own experience of combining the roles of mother and artist. Against this background I describe and interpret my own recent body of work, drawn from my subjective experience of becoming, and being, a mother whilst continuing my artistic practice.

Ma Shouzhen (1548-1604), one of the most acclaimed courtesans at the Qinhuai pleasure quarters in the late-Ming period, is well-known for her orchid paintings in Chinese art history. This thesis explores the courtesan-painters success in the courtesan world and in the male-dominated history of Chinese art, with its focus upon the artistic interactions between Ma Shouzhen and her lifelong lover Wang Zhideng (1535-1612), an exponent of the Wu School literati painting. This thesis argues that it was Wang Zhideng in particular who played a crucial role in constructing the courtesans image and position in history. Through Wang Zhidengs interventions, Ma Shouzhen played an intermediary role in the dissemination of art theory advocated by the Wu School artists. The acceptance and popularity of Ma Shouzhens orchid works in the history of Chinese painting mirrors the prominent position of the Wu School in this field. / East Asian Interdisciplinary Studies