The thesis examines the work of photographer Nick Hedges (b. 1953) who made photographs for the housing charity Shelter between 1968 and 1972. It concentrates on Hedges’ methodology, his representation of the homeless child, and how this was deployed in Shelter’s campaign strategy. Moreover, it examines the wider political, sociological and cultural debates surrounding the conception, production, dissemination and reception of the Shelter photographs. The thesis argues that Hedges’ photographs, although contextualised by an ostensibly radical charity agenda, were shaped by an established photographic and art historical tradition reaching back to the nineteenth century. This is examined in the light of a shifting conception of what constituted an ethically sound representation of homelessness amongst leftist critics in Britain from the 1970s onwards. The thesis equally discusses the archive as a site of photographic accession, interpretation and display, and outlines the issues that face archive professionals charged with the presentation of the Shelter photographs to a contemporary audience. By combining art historical analysis of Hedges’ photographs with research into their current framing in the archive, the thesis offers a distinctive contribution to scholarship, exploring how photographic meaning is shaped, subverted and disseminated by individuals, organisations and institutions alike.

This thesis explores the epistemic structures of late seventeenth- and eighteenth-century migrating image-makers with a particular regard for producers of sculpture. By means of an analysis of journals written by the sculptor Franz Ertinger (1669 – 1747) and the glazier Jacques-Louis Ménétra (1738-c.1803) this thesis identifies an epistemic order which was contingent on the worlds of mobility of seventeenth- and eighteenth-century craftsmen. In order to advance the understanding of how artisan image-makers of this period acquired, organised and developed knowledge, the concept of a cognitive tool-box is introduced. Examining a number of cognitive tools, i. e. epistemic strategies, the thesis constructs an interpretative framework through which itinerant artisans were potentially able to derive meanings from situations, objects and communities which were unfamiliar or culturally different in some ways. Due to the emphasis on cognitive aspects, the thesis‟s principal method can be described as an epistemological history of art, taking into consideration historically specific mechanisms of interpretation, exchange and knowledge organisation, such as the building of unwritten archives of artisan histories. The thesis also addresses questions surrounding the identities of migrating craftsmen and suggests the existence of a “Republic of Tools”, tracing the career of one of its highly mobile citizens, the sculptor Johann Eckstein (1735-1817).

This study explores issues of technique, methodology and style in ethnographic/documentary films, with a focus on Sardinia. How are cultural realities constructed in documentary and ethnographic films? In what ways do practical filmmaking strategies reflect wider epistemological questions and ethical concerns? The thesis examines the general stylistic principles that have guided the making of a substantial body of documentary films about Sardinia. Attention has been paid to a range of different methods used by a select number of documentary and ethnographic filmmakers, covering important theoretical points on the distinctive set of technical, aesthetic and ethical problems embodied in the epistemology of their filmmaking practice. The study concludes that scholars should look for a more balanced fusion between film as a multisensory medium of ideas and forms of ethnographic enquiry conducted through language. The nonverbal elements and visual imagery in ethnographic/documentary films suggest obliquely that a kind of knowledge expressed in the concrete case requires an acknowledgment of domains of experience that often elude written expression.

This thesis provides the first analysis of occupational therapy and art therapy from an art historical viewpoint. Based on archival material, it examines how modern artists, art pedagogues, schools and museums theorised, implemented and publicised therapeutic art-making practices. It focuses on four case studies in Britain and the US (1937-1946): occupational therapy by László Moholy-Nagy at the School of Design, founded as the New Bauhaus (Chicago); art therapy by Arthur Segal (London and Oxford); Northfield Military Hospital (Birmingham); and The Arts in Therapy exhibition series at the Museum of Modern Art (New York). Elucidating the concepts, practices and display of therapeutic art across these institutions, this research presents new intersections between modern art and medicine. It contributes to the history of art, the history of healing, and the growing medical humanities concerned with their entanglement. Therapeutic approaches defined art as an experiential process, shifting emphasis away from objects, with focus on the psychological and physiological effects on makers rather than what they produced. Consequently, this thesis expands art historical remits by presenting narratives of art that are culturally, socially and politically situated but that predominantly concern ideas, processes and effects on individuals rather than objects, images and performances by them.

Key pattern is a type of abstract ornament characterised by spiral shapes which are angular rather than curved. It has been used to decorate objects and architecture around the world from prehistory onward, but flourished in a unique form in Insular art (the art of early medieval Britain and Ireland, c. AD 600-1100). Ornament of many kinds was the dominant mode in Insular art, however, key pattern has remained the least studied and most misunderstood. From the 19th century, specialists mainly have relied on simplified, line-drawn reproductions rather than original artworks. These 'correct' hand-made details, isolate patterns from their contexts, and in the case of Insular key pattern, de-emphasise its important physical structures. This resulted in misunderstandings of key pattern's structure and an inability to recognise evidence for medieval artists' working processes. Postwar art historians and archaeologists then largely abandoned study of ornament structure altogether, in critical reaction to this earlier method. For two centuries, academics have overlooked the artists' role in pattern-making, and how their creative agency is reflected in patterns' internal structures. In response, this thesis presents a new, artist-centred method for the study of Insular key pattern, which adapts Michael Brennan's pioneering approach to Insular interlace (a different pattern), to suit key pattern's distinct structure. Close examination of objects and monuments, rather than idealised 'types', has revealed how Insular artists themselves understood key pattern and handled it in the moment of creation. The core of the thesis is an analysis of key pattern's structural properties, i.e. its physical parts and the abstract, often mathematical concepts that Insular makers used to arrange and manipulate these parts, in order to fix mistakes, fulfill specific design goals, or invent anew. Case studies of individual artworks support this analysis and demonstrate how key pattern is a vehicle for accessing Insular artists' thought processes, as they improvised with the pattern's basic structures for maximum creative effect. For the first time, this thesis also places Insular key pattern in its global context, via comparative analyses of key patterns from other world art traditions. This investigation has confirmed key pattern's origin in prehistoric basketry and weaving technologies and explains why Insular key pattern's geometric complexity remains unparalleled. The adaptation and expansion of this new analytical method for key pattern also proves its applicability to any type of ornament from any culture, making it immediately useful to art historians and archaeologists. This thesis therefore represents a larger paradigm shift that brings ornament study into the 21st century.

Not in every case, the designer is knowledgeable about the potential user. Users can be consulted, in order to obtain knowledge, which is required for the design process. However such a consultation process can be problematic, since users may have difficulty in expressing their needs and problems or they may not be aware of them. The study is devised originating from the idea that if appropriate tools are provided for users, they can express their needs and design related problems. The thesis involves a literature review on the necessity of user knowledge as an input for the design process, and methods, techniques and tools, which provide this knowledge. Based on the findings from the literature review, three fictional case studies were planned and performed by employing two techniques, namely mood boards and drawing and shaping ideal products. These two techniques are developed into a procedure step by step by carrying out the case studies. The thesis proposes guidelines for the procedure of &ldquo / user workshops&rdquo / as a way to elicit users&rsquo / tangible and intangible needs, and user defined problems by directing them to imagine and express a usage context and conceptualize solutions considering their design related problems through a concept development activity and additional creative activities.

This study re-conceptualises the community play as an aspect of contemporary British theatre. In the context of the idea of an arts entitlement which has two components, participation and enjoyment, it examines three antecedents to current practice. These are: theatre and empowerment, which looks at the work of Brecht and Boal on conceptions of the audience; outreach work, which examines the de-mystification of art by looking at the relationship between theatre and education and community arts, which focuses on harnessing the creative potential of ordinary people. The lines of development which link these three areas to the community play are investigated. The history and origins of the form are outlined and Ann Jellicoe's work with the Colway Theatre Trust is examined. The study offers a new conceptual vocabulary for the analysis of community playmaking which has three principal terms: aesthetic materialism - a development of Marxist principles as they relate to a consideration of the aesthetic circumstances of the people; aesthetic justice - an application of Beardsley's concept to contemporary society and current theatre practice; and communal theatre - a new term developed as a result of this study which clarifies the differences between participation and collaboration in the making of community theatre. These three concepts are united by their relationship to the rejection of bourgeois control of cultural capital which underpins the investigative stance of the study. Contemporary society is characterised by the study as aesthetically unjust and the main questions it asks relate the search for aesthetic justice to the developing form of the community play. The theoretical investigations of the study are contextualized by fieldwork which consisted of a participant observation case study of the community department of the Belgrade theatre, Coventry. This spanned two years and focused on the 1992 Coventry community play Diamonds in the Dust. The study concludes with a comparison of the main forms of participatory theatre in the 1990s which offers a means of identifying the heuristic value of the various models of community playmaking with respect to their potential for empowerment and contribution to aesthetic justice. The implications of the study are that the participatory element of the arts entitlement needs to be strengthened into true collaboration between the professionals and the non-professionals involved in order to ensure equality of access to, and popular control of, the cultural capital which is symbolised by the community play. Communal theatre projects of this sort are assessed as being able to promote the kind of shared experience which is necessary for the development of a more aesthetically just society.

This thesis is concerned with the didactic function of fourteenth- and fifteenth-century vernacular religious literature and art in contemporary medieval English society, and particularly the ways in which texts and images participate in emergent lay religious culture and inform social practices of the time. The focus is on apocryphal and legendary depictions of episodes in the Life of the Virgin Mary in vernacular works of the later Middle Ages and special consideration is given to the ways in which certain female audiences in England may have received and responded to Mary narratives. An introductory chapter outlines the process and means by which biblical and extra-biblical knowledge was disseminated to the late medieval laity via the range of literary and pictorial material brought into comparison in this thesis. Additionally, the introductory chapter surveys existing research on the socio-economic and spiritual circumstances that made accounts of Mary’s life particularly useful to ‘merchant-class’ wives whose way of life, it is argued, is emblematic of change in the period. Five central chapters each provide interpretations of common motifs in a key event in Christian history involving Mary and assess their engagement with the experiences and aspirations of lay unlearned audiences, primarily (though not exclusively) domesticated bourgeois women. The events referred to and discussed in chronological order in this thesis are the Annunciation, Nativity, Passion of Christ, and the Death, Assumption and Coronation of Mary. The material analysed comprises biblical drama, sermons, poetry, lyrics, wall-paintings, manuscript illustrations, and tapestries. A number of core works are referred to throughout and, as detailed in the introduction, include texts such as the four extant mystery cycle plays, Nicholas Love’s Mirror, John Mirk’s Festial, the Cursor Mundi, and art works such as contained in the Biblia Pauperum, and books of hours.

This study develops the interpretation of hybrid and human-esque male monsters by examining ambiguous presentations of these figures in Greek and Roman literature and art, putting a fresh perspective on the hero/monster encounter and showing that monsters are developed characters rather than simple heroic attributes, as they are frequently interpreted in modern scholarship. Additional strands running through the thesis are consideration of the hero’s ambiguity through visual similarity to monsters and through shared characteristics; the relationship between monstrous body and monstrous behaviour; the subjectivity of monsters; how masculinity relates to monstrosity; and how monsters operate within the Other/self discourse as ways of exploring human behaviour and relationships in the two monster tale types of heroic encounter and love story. As well as looking at how media and genre affect characterisation, where relevant, the political and social contexts of Greece and Rome will form a background to considering how monsters are presented. This thesis explores the full range of the male monster’s ambiguity (humanised through gestures, clothing, or body; placed into a social context by humanising, or by relationships with humans; given subjectivity) and monstrosity (they explore excessive human behaviour and masculinity), and how the monster is a character in its own right.

This practice as research contributes a ‘queer-place dramaturgy’ to knowledge about playwriting by creating an intersection of writing queer site specific performance and conventional dramatic theatre practice. It follows the recent shift of focus from queer theorizing of sexuality as a constructed identity, to thinking about what queer use of time and space might be. This shift proposes queerness that is detached, but not completely separated from, sexual identity. This shift also produces a range of kinds of queerness that can be described as odd, imaginative, strange, eccentric, dangerous, threatening wonder-full and abject. I use key works by Sara Ahmed, Jon Binnie, Judith Butler, Michael Foucault and Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick to theoretically contextualise these kinds of queer times and places. I materially investigate the theory that there is such a thing as queer time and place through an exercise of writing on a public bench for a prolonged period of time, called the ‘civic couch’ exercise. I found that this small resistance to the apparently politically neutral temporal use of a place could (re) author ‘me’ as queer beyond sexual identity. It also began to (re) author ‘identity’ itself, so that ‘I’ became more and more identified by where I was. This led to a queer practice of co-writing self and place with each time and place. When that text was dramatized the audience were invited to co-author each local place through the play and outside after the performance. This series investigates, through a spiraling structure of research the relationship between direct resistance to homophobia and heterosexism through representation of queer lives, bodies, times and places and an indirect formal resistance to a (hetero) normative construction of ‘reality’. Asking finally the question: How queer can queer writing for conventional theatre practice be in the UK today? This project aimed to bring queer theory into practical contact with playwriting to see what it could change in the form of dramatic theatre. I found that I could (re) shape and guide dramaturgical principles but not fundamentally change or break them. I define what ‘dramaturgical principles’ are in relation to the critical work of Sue-Ellen Case, Elin Diamond, Peggy Phelan and José Esteban Muñoz and argue that ancient concepts of ‘dramaturgical principles’ continue to circulate in postmodern, queer and feminist theorizing about form in theatre and performance. I propose that the lineage of queer writing for theatre maps a negotiation between challenging form and content, which changes significantly from the early twentieth century (and the work of Gertrude Stein and Lillian Hellman) to the emergence of the gay liberation movement in the late 1960s, (and the work of Gay Sweatshop, 1974 -1997), to Performance Art, Live Art and mainstream theatre in the 1990s (and work by Mark Ravenhill, Sarah Kane and Split Britches). I also contextualize this research as practice with contemporary site-specific performance interventions into (hetero) normative uses of public, outdoor places, particularly through the public bench.