Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Wisconsin--Madison, 2000. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 268-284). Also available on the Internet.

Constructing Voices is a narrative case study exploring the experiences of young women as they participated in a major public art performance project. I followed the process and production of Turning Point and Under Construction over the course of one year. Under the direction of American performance artist and educator Suzanne Lacy, this Vancouver, Canada based art project and performance sought to empower participating young women; to help them fin their voice and to provide them with a forum so that they might challenge and alter public perception and stereotypes of young women in the mass media. Seven young women from Turning Point and three local organizers, including the project and performance producer, have offered their narratives to inform this study. Together, they take us behind the scenes of a huge and complex community art project and performance. Their stories help us find meaning amidst the contradictions inherent in art productions of this magnitude. I approach this inquiry from a constructivist paradigm, informed by postmodern feminism. Through this research I call for a collaborative art practice which is reflexive, critical and egalitarian - one in which power is shared and where representation is determined by those whose lives are displayed. To inform our future artistic and educational practices, we need to turn to those pedagogical frameworks that best correspond to the intended goals of the projects. In the case of Turning Point and Under Construction, we need to look to feminist, emancipatory and performance art pedagogies. Only by informing our practices in this way, can these projects provide the opportunity for individuals to achieve a heightened engagement with their world - to learn through currere. In this narrative case study, we hear from young women at turning points in their lives. They believe what they say has value and should be heard by others. Performance art has the potential to be a rich site for learning so long as the process is congruent with the goals of the art project. As art educators we can respond to these narratives in our practices by providing environments for learning where participants/learners can find their own ideas and voices while expressing themselves in personally meaningful ways.

My research investigates the habitual, the non-monumental, the mundane, the ordinary and the everyday. I conceive of this as those moments in life that are not socially or culturally recognised as important. Traditionally, such moments have not been considered worthy of documentation and have been omitted or overlooked by mainstream media. This exegesis examines the importance of the everyday and considers how to make it conspicuous. Historically, these moments have been identified with the feminine, in that much theoretical and artistic work has emerged exploring women's experience of the everyday and testifying to its importance. Three spheres in particular have attracted critical interest: namely the body, the domestic and personal identity. For example, in 1966 Yoko Ono's 'No 4 (Bottoms)' brought the issue of the body and its banality onto centre stage by showing an endless parade of bottoms. In 1975, Chantal Akerman's film 'Jeanne Dielman, 23 quai du commerce, 1080 Bruxelles', showed the everyday routines of a self-contained housewife. More recently, numerous artists have explored the politics of identity. Sadie Benning has made numerous videos that show the mundane and also reveal her personal identity, by exploring large and especially small scale details. / While conventionally newsreels and big budget documentaries have focused on 'big' events, one of the arenas that have investigated the everyday is experimental film and video. My exegesis gives a brief historical overview of this genre. Testimony in this media is often used as a voice to express the everyday. My journal entries (testimonies) deal with everyday experiences, and are interspersed throughout my exegesis. They are also the main threads in my videos. In my studio work, I use movement and dance to express in an abstract manner issues about the everyday, which include personal identity, more specifically issues of illness and sexuality / My research draws on a variety of sources including: 1970's feminist artists and filmmakers (Chantal Akerman and Martha Rosler). Many artists who were involved in the women's movement used their bodies in various art forms including performance art to make radical statements about domesticity and feminism. Contemporary artists' depiction of personal identity that mostly informed my work (in particular, queer identity) are: experimental queer film and media makers Sadie Benning, Marlon Riggs, Isaac Julien and William Yang. / Thesis (MVisualArts)--University of South Australia, 2006.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Wisconsin--Madison, 2000. / eContent provider-neutral record in process. Description based on print version record. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 268-284).

Thesis (M.A.)--University of Delaware, 2005. / Principal faculty advisor: Gibson, Ann E., Dept. of Art History. Includes bibliographical references.

The seventeenth century saw a large increase in family-related portrait materials, including group family portraits, family portrait collections, and family memorial albums. In this thesis, I contend with the meanings and functions of family portraits created in the Netherlands in an attempt to illuminate the motives behind the rise in the number of portraits of the family during this period. I focus on the ways in which Dutch families utilised portraiture as a vehicle for constructing personal and national identity. In an age of extraordinary economic success, religious tension, and political upheaval, portraits of the members of the expanding Dutch ‘middle class’, who had the means and the desire to commission them, reveal a conscious inclination to define and substantiate a fashioned identity as the new urban elite of a Republic in the making. My study assesses family portraits as sites where identity and changing notions of selfhood were envisioned and performed. The shifting notions of ‘family’, and the increasing popularity of commissioning portraits seems to signal attempts to configure and imagine their relationship to Dutch society. I propose that the amount of portraits related to the family commissioned alongside an exploration of and struggle with identity is a symptom of the anxiety surrounding politics, religion, and social changes, for which the family often served as a metaphor. New perspectives on portrait theory and identity, especially those of Ann Jensen Adams and Joanna Woodall, contributed to the shaping of this thesis, particularly as a means to comprehend how portraits functioned in the lives of families. There are four chapters that make up the body of this thesis. In each chapter, I focus on specific works of art chosen for their suitability in highlighting certain concepts and anxieties about identity and the family in its cultural context at their extremes.

Constructing Voices is a narrative case study exploring the experiences of young women as they participated in a major public art performance project. I followed the process and production of Turning Point and Under Construction over the course of one year. Under the direction of American performance artist and educator Suzanne Lacy, this Vancouver, Canada based art project and performance sought to empower participating young women; to help them fin their voice and to provide them with a forum so that they might challenge and alter public perception and stereotypes of young women in the mass media. Seven young women from Turning Point and three local organizers, including the project and performance producer, have offered their narratives to inform this study. Together, they take us behind the scenes of a huge and complex community art project and performance. Their stories help us find meaning amidst the contradictions inherent in art productions of this magnitude. I approach this inquiry from a constructivist paradigm, informed by postmodern feminism. Through this research I call for a collaborative art practice which is reflexive, critical and egalitarian - one in which power is shared and where representation is determined by those whose lives are displayed. To inform our future artistic and educational practices, we need to turn to those pedagogical frameworks that best correspond to the intended goals of the projects. In the case of Turning Point and Under Construction, we need to look to feminist, emancipatory and performance art pedagogies. Only by informing our practices in this way, can these projects provide the opportunity for individuals to achieve a heightened engagement with their world - to learn through currere. In this narrative case study, we hear from young women at turning points in their lives. They believe what they say has value and should be heard by others. Performance art has the potential to be a rich site for learning so long as the process is congruent with the goals of the art project. As art educators we can respond to these narratives in our practices by providing environments for learning where participants/learners can find their own ideas and voices while expressing themselves in personally meaningful ways. / Education, Faculty of / Curriculum and Pedagogy (EDCP), Department of / Graduate

O trabalho a seguir propõe um estudo do filme Chaplin (1992), dirigido por Richard Attenborough. Essa investigação foi feita sob a perspectiva da psicologia social da arte e do cinema, procurando entender o objeto dentro do campo em que ele se encaixa: a atividade artística. Levantamos também a discussão das temáticas que a própria obra suscita. Para tal, alguns autores de áreas conciliáveis com a psicologia foram utilizados também. Exemplo disso é a forte presença de estudos iconológicos no trabalho. Em nossa avaliação do filme subdividimos a análise em duas etapas majoritárias. Na primeira delas, separamos a obra por seções, de acordo com o que consideramos como momentos distintos da narrativa. Cada uma delas corresponde a uma fase da vida do personagem principal e/ou uma série de acontecimentos muito marcantes correlacionados. Nessas seções consideramos também algumas categorias técnicas para a avaliação das cenas. São as atuações, a música, os diferentes enquadramentos e cenários e a luminosidade dos frames, assim como as suas cores. Já na segunda parte da análise, algumas das sequências são avaliadas mais profundamente, considerando as categorias anteriormente citadas e fazendo uma descrição minuciosa do correr daquele instante narrativo. Além disso, são discutidos os tópicos que aparecem com mais força na sequência. Ou seja, estivemos atentos a dois aspectos principais enquanto analisamos o filme: as temáticas recorrentes da obra (como a relação entre fama, sucesso e solidão, por exemplo) e as estratégias utilizadas pela película para criar as cenas e a narrativa. A forma como ela combina os enquadramentos, a música e os demais elementos. Por fim, estabelecemos algumas reflexões gerais sobre o filme como um todo, pensando na análise das seções e das sequências escolhidas. Assim como também propomos uma continuidade das discussões erigidas nesta pesquisa / The following work proposes a study of Chaplin (1992), movie directed by Richard Attenborough. We carried this inquiry under the Social Psychology of Art and Cinema perspective, trying to understand the object inside the field it fits in: the artistic activity. We also discussed themes the own work of art elicits. For this, we applied scholars whose areas dialogue with Psychology as well. For instance, we have a strong presence of iconological studies in the work. The examination of the film required a two main steps subdivided analysis. On the first one, we separated the movie into sections, according to what we considered distinguished moments of the narrative. Each one of them matches a protagonists life phase and/or a correlated chain of remarkable events. We also considered some technical categories on these sections, so we could examine the scenes. They are the performers acting, music, framings and scenarios, and finally the colors and luminosity of these frames. Then we have the second part analysis, which is a deep and detailed examination of some sequences, considering the mentioned categories. In other words, we kept our attention on two main aspects while conducting the analysis: the movie recurring issues (for instance, the relation between fame, success and loneliness) and its scene creation strategies. Namely, the combination of framing, music and other elements. Finally, there are some general reflections about the movie as a whole, contemplating the sections and the chosen sequences analysis. We also propose that the raised debates continue beyond this research

Thesis (MA (VA)(Visual Arts))--University of Stellenbosch, 2007. / Thesis received without illustrations at the time of submission to this repository. / This research follows the assumption that the notion of performativity can be applied to the visual construction of identity within art-making discourse in order to explore the contingent and mutable nature of identity in representation. My interest in performativity, defined as the active, repetitive and ritualistic processes responsible for the construction of subjectivities, lies within the process of production. I indicate how this notion, within the context of self-representation, can provide the possibility for performing identity as a process. I investigate the extent to which gender, the gaze, memory and narrative contribute to the performative construction of self-representations and reveal, through the exploration of my practical research, that these concepts are themselves performative. Although agency to construct the self can be regarded as problematic, considering the role of language and discourse in determining subjectivities, this research suggests that it is possible to perform interventions from within language. I suggest that the notion of inscription provides a means through which identity constructions can be performed differently; and that my art-making process of repetitive inscription, erasure and re-inscription of image and text and the layering of paint not only reflect the notion of performativity, but also enable me to expose the multiple and fragmented nature of identities.

As a woman of Moroccan descent, I have been brought up surrounded by a rich culture that places great emphasis on the importance of hospitality and family traditions. This exhibit represents an exploration of porcelain ceramics vessels that have been produced over the past year. The work incorporates tagine forms, plates, tea cups and tea pots that are commonly used while entertaining guests in a Moroccan home. Moroccans welcome the opportunity to show their generosity and hospitality by welcoming guests into their homes to visit and share meals. The vessels are ornately painted and decorated so that meals served will feast the eyes as well as the palate. The porcelain is decorated with ornate finials, underglazes and china painting. The subject of the imagery is a combination of visual anthropology in which random images of people from today's society are contrasted with my own interpretation of ancient geometric design details that are found in North African Zillij cut mosaic tiles. This infuses the work with an imagined sense of time and place. The attempt to harmonize seemingly incongruent elements results in vessels that feel both familiar and eccentric. The layers of color areused to symbolize nature, purity, depth of life and spiritual abundance. The colors are placed randomly in contrast to the symmetry of the geometric designs. The work is displayed in a dining room setting where guests are always welcome to enter. My work as an artist enhances the experience I bring to my students in the classroom. / by Anita Schwartz. / Thesis (M.A.)--Florida Atlantic University, 2011. / Includes bibliography. / Electronic reproduction. Boca Raton, Fla., 2011. Mode of access: World Wide Web.