My life and my art are extensions of my Russian Orthodox faith and Slavic heritage. For many years, I have been influenced by religious folk objects and books found around my home and church. Ultimately, this led me to explore other traditional Slavic forms of iconography. Discovering the commonality between the Russian and American cultures and their arts and crafts has been an ongoing journey. Originally, whether showing the different ways to portray a flower or a saint, I used only paint. Now, I express my ideas through heating metal, glass, wax, and gems. Understanding how to combine centuries old techniques with a contemporary presentation has become a passion that continues to inspire my jewelry and sculpture.

How can artistic practice become a valid method of observing counter-histories; the histories which are not included in the institutionally supported historical narrative? How can the counter-monument movement be re-adapted and re-visited through its original ideologies, in the context of post-conflict spaces in former Yugoslavia? This practice-led project positions the state of the monument today, and more specifically in societies existing in a state of unresolved conflict. In doing so, it examines the artwork as a counter-monumental form and as an approach to unravelling issues of a resistance which exist in sites where monument-building is not possible. Departing from a body of research that looks at how destruction or alienation of sites of memory enables the denial of history and creates formats for further manipulation of historical events, this project considers whether artistic practice can provide a method of confronting the state of memorialization of conflict through an auto-ethnographic critique of historical events. Furthermore, whether artistic practice can provide insight into a space where state facilitated symbolic repair is unstable. This project takes on an appropriated structure of a play. Presented in six Acts, and a Prologue and Epilogue, it delves into an observation, through a visual and non-visual critique, of three selected, different states of conflict that have appeared in the region of former Yugoslavia and their memorialization. The first examines the WWII conflict between the Partisans and Domobranci (Homeguard) in Slovenia, the second observes the historical narrative surrounding the WWII concentration camp Jasenovac, and the third looks at the problematic state of denial of 1990s atrocities, in Republika Srpska, in Bosnia and Herzegovina. Each Act unveils a methodological approach, which is considered an integral part of the artwork, and through which a different understanding of the counter-monument is appropriated. The Acts consist of reflections intertwining three different modes of presenting knowledge; through theoretical concepts surrounding conflict, memory, monuments, representations of violence in the arts and politics (considered as stage notes, giving context), interrupted by a series of narrative recollections (imitating diary descriptions, of events that are either encounters with places or people and treated as a scenography which creates the atmosphere), and the artworks (which are regarded as the script). Through a series of artworks, this project, appears almost as a gesamtkunstwerk, or complete body of the Acts, weaving through theoretical and historical constructs in order to challenge the premise of social and artistic representations of trauma, history, political power, and social injustice. In doing so, it positions the action of making research as the sculptural-visible and non-visible-form which attempts to redefine political sculpture as the re/de-construction of the counter-monument.

acase@tulane.edu / 1 / Abdi Farah

Thesis (doctoral)--Johann Wolfgang Goethe-Universität, Frankfurt am Main. / Includes bibliographical references.

This project is the building of structural decoration in clay. Joining wheelthrown pieces and building with slabs or coils are the methods used. The work is augmented by a study of the evolution of similar forms in other periods. A list of criteria for evaluating materials and methods is developed. Colored slides of the constructions built for the project are included and the history of each form is discussed.The material presented gives insight into the development of form. The intuitive knowledge gained from the project will be used by the writer as a basis for further exploration of form and can suggest methods and directions for other individuals in their own research. Recommendations are made for stimulating an increased sensitivity to form among high school students.

Texte remanié de: Dissertation--Fachbereich Germanistik und Kunstgeschichte--Marburg--Philipps-Universität, 2002. / Bibliogr. p. 320-351.

Texte remanié de: Diss.--Geisteswissenschaftliche Fakultät--Graz--Karl-Franzens-Universität, 1999. / Notes bibliogr. Index.

Texte remanié de: Tesis de doctorado--Historia del arte--Universidad de Zaragoza, 2001. / Bibliogr. p. 371-384.

Dissertation--Altertumswissenschaften--Berlin--Freie Universität, 1994-1995. / Notes bibliogr.

This Master’s Thesis Report is a discussion of the ideas and processes that I have researched and explored during the past three years at the University of Texas at Austin. This exploration has led to a body of work that examines how materials, images and processes address the boundaries between physical and spiritual worlds. Fundamental to that inquiry is the use of mythology as a tool to decode and interpret signs that point to an experience of the transcendent that is outside the realm of language. / text