The Empty Portrait forefronts a new experience of the portrait for all participants involved: the photographer, the subject, and the viewer. Breaking away from the camera, the materiality of the photograph, and the portrait as a locus of identity are central aspects of this new experience. As it challenges the relationship between photography and temporality, The Empty Portrait attempts to blur the boundary between the photographic and cinematic image, asking the viewer to look and contemplate further.

This study arises out of the researcher’s experience in the fields of costume and fashion. It develops, through design practice and reflection, a design process for fashion wear made from post-consumer recycled materials. Theoretical analysis provides global, historical, philosophical and design contexts within which to develop an ethos for this variant form of fashion wear designated ReFashion. Differences in design process between conventional fashion and ReFashion are detailed to highlight the significance of provenance of materials in the light of a perceived need to slow down clothing production and consumption. This perception is informed by scientific predictions that failure to engage with urgently needed changes to the prevalent economic paradigm will result in planet earth reaching a tipping point with potentially disastrous results for its inhabitants. Fundamental to the ReFashion ethos is preparedness for a speculative post-apocalyptic future that might render the fashion system unable to operate as it currently does, necessitating a more self-sufficient approach to clothing needs, with an accompanying shift in perceptions of what is deemed fashionable. The theme Survivalist Fantasy provides a lens to bring conceptual and material aspects of the work into focus. Informed by sustainability, Survivalist Fantasy recontextualises a failure of sustainable initiatives on a global scale and their adaptation on a local scale specifically in the arena of clothing.

This project contemplates where New Zealanders will turn to in the future for resonating, identity-based design, and explores two potential scenarios. The first scenario questions whether existing ‘classic’ motifs – currently enjoying pride of place on national identity T-shirts and accessories, and commonly used over the last century within the tourist souvenir industry – will still be relevant, and still resonate, if used in different ways. The second scenario questions whether a new round of more obscure, overlooked, ‘lower case’ and everyday domestic artefacts and experiences will resonate with New Zealanders. This project sets out to ‘craft nostalgic resonance’, through conceptual recycling from my own biography, in order to connect with viewers through personal recognition located within their own biography. It draws from experiences and artefacts specific and personal yet at the same time, inevitably, part of a larger collective story, in the creation of a new range of identity-based souvenirs for New Zealanders. The resulting body of work, and its successful public dissemination, proves that it is possible to craft nostalgic resonance through conceptual recycling, and that this approach could be extended to both a wider range of original artefacts and experiences, and a wider range of souvenir products in the future.

As an expressive language, fashion design has an innate capacity to engage a full gamut of sensorial responses. This research explores the contribution of synaesthesia to fashion design in an effort to highlight the positive aesthetic and intellectual impact of this integration. Such research advances my creative practice. The method of realising garments which address synaesthetic principles is an extension of personal interest in synaesthesia, driven from both an experiential perspective and a desire to gain a greater understanding into theories in relation to challenging the senses in a contemporary fashion world. If fashion includes novelty as a crucial and desirable aspect, and can be defined as an ever evolving and self rejuvenating art form, then the energy and frivolity of these components in association with multiple sensory stimuli and response will expose the consequence of the study through design-work. Recognition of the importance of sensory cross-overs in fashion design will reveal the quintessence of how humans position themselves and respond to a specific environment. If realisation of the senses is with regard to surroundings, and fashion becomes the surrounding which elicits multiple involuntary responses from stimuli, a conscious recognition has begun. Traditional theories on the organisation of sense modalities speculate that humans perceive their world with five senses, the most dominant generally being sight. The combined effect of these senses creates the environment in which we inhabit. The visual and tactile senses have long been the focus of the fashion product but, of all the senses, touch is most key to our species (Ackerman, 1990). Sound, taste and smell have been under-recognised as providers of ceaseless information about our environment. The investigation into the notion that fashion and other sensory systems are not separate entities assists with establishing the links between sensory integration and fashion design. The emergence of the synaesthetic paradigm has highlighted a unity between the senses rather than the traditional hierarchy of favouring the visual. The research on synaesthesia relative to fashion design occupies a parallel position to neurological theory and allows synaesthetic investigation to be a pivotal determining factor towards my outcome. I have engaged in critical self-reflection of my design process and production as a means of elucidating stimuli associated with multi-sensory perception.

This study arises out of the researcher’s experience in the fields of costume and fashion. It develops, through design practice and reflection, a design process for fashion wear made from post-consumer recycled materials. Theoretical analysis provides global, historical, philosophical and design contexts within which to develop an ethos for this variant form of fashion wear designated ReFashion. Differences in design process between conventional fashion and ReFashion are detailed to highlight the significance of provenance of materials in the light of a perceived need to slow down clothing production and consumption. This perception is informed by scientific predictions that failure to engage with urgently needed changes to the prevalent economic paradigm will result in planet earth reaching a tipping point with potentially disastrous results for its inhabitants. Fundamental to the ReFashion ethos is preparedness for a speculative post-apocalyptic future that might render the fashion system unable to operate as it currently does, necessitating a more self-sufficient approach to clothing needs, with an accompanying shift in perceptions of what is deemed fashionable. The theme Survivalist Fantasy provides a lens to bring conceptual and material aspects of the work into focus. Informed by sustainability, Survivalist Fantasy recontextualises a failure of sustainable initiatives on a global scale and their adaptation on a local scale specifically in the arena of clothing.

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This research project investigates factors contributing to what I consider to be an erosion within the contemporary culture of the imagination- crucial to the very concept of what it is to be human. It has been said that the 'civilising' of art within contemporary culture may have flogged the human imagination into retreat. If so what might be the best way for art to help us visualise more creative ways of living and being? This is the key question I have pursued in this research project, the main outcomes of which are a body of creative art works (presented for examination in the form of a site-specific installation, together with documentary archive of photographs and other interventions) and an exegesis which explores the critical context for these. In proposing site-specific installation art as a vital alternative to the over-commodification evident within much contemporary art, I also see repetition and play as being strategies with particular potential for encouraging active artist-participant dialogue on the subject of the poetico-ethical imagination- along lines suggested by thinkers such as Robert Kearney and Ken Wilbur. The artefacts and installations presented for examination are mostly devoid of textual explanation and commentary, with the aim of emphasising direct sensory experience. However, throughout the written component (exegesis) I have taken the creative liberty of including textual fragments and other visual elements as a means of suggesting that a form of disassociation, meandering or breakdown has occurred. The reader will also notice an absence of capitalisation in the titles of chapters (and certain works). In this I have sought to explore possibilities for undermining academic form through imaginative play.

This research project will explore Book Arts through the book of Genesis, focusing on the first seven days of creation. Particular attention will be paid to the interactive multi-sensual aspects of the book as object and to adding life and meaning to the reading experience. This exploration of Book Arts through Genesis will result in the development of a form of book that encourages engagement in both physical and psychological interactions to find new ways of reading – particularly scriptural texts – influencing spiritual growth and personal relationships. Particularly within, but not limited to, a Christian context. This project seeks to turn the book into a viable organism in our lives. The book itself will engage viewers through layers of sensory experience and nuanced psychological interaction.

This study arises out of the researcher’s experience in the fields of costume and fashion. It develops, through design practice and reflection, a design process for fashion wear made from post-consumer recycled materials. Theoretical analysis provides global, historical, philosophical and design contexts within which to develop an ethos for this variant form of fashion wear designated ReFashion. Differences in design process between conventional fashion and ReFashion are detailed to highlight the significance of provenance of materials in the light of a perceived need to slow down clothing production and consumption. This perception is informed by scientific predictions that failure to engage with urgently needed changes to the prevalent economic paradigm will result in planet earth reaching a tipping point with potentially disastrous results for its inhabitants. Fundamental to the ReFashion ethos is preparedness for a speculative post-apocalyptic future that might render the fashion system unable to operate as it currently does, necessitating a more self-sufficient approach to clothing needs, with an accompanying shift in perceptions of what is deemed fashionable. The theme Survivalist Fantasy provides a lens to bring conceptual and material aspects of the work into focus. Informed by sustainability, Survivalist Fantasy recontextualises a failure of sustainable initiatives on a global scale and their adaptation on a local scale specifically in the arena of clothing.

This study arises out of the researcher’s experience in the fields of costume and fashion. It develops, through design practice and reflection, a design process for fashion wear made from post-consumer recycled materials. Theoretical analysis provides global, historical, philosophical and design contexts within which to develop an ethos for this variant form of fashion wear designated ReFashion. Differences in design process between conventional fashion and ReFashion are detailed to highlight the significance of provenance of materials in the light of a perceived need to slow down clothing production and consumption. This perception is informed by scientific predictions that failure to engage with urgently needed changes to the prevalent economic paradigm will result in planet earth reaching a tipping point with potentially disastrous results for its inhabitants. Fundamental to the ReFashion ethos is preparedness for a speculative post-apocalyptic future that might render the fashion system unable to operate as it currently does, necessitating a more self-sufficient approach to clothing needs, with an accompanying shift in perceptions of what is deemed fashionable. The theme Survivalist Fantasy provides a lens to bring conceptual and material aspects of the work into focus. Informed by sustainability, Survivalist Fantasy recontextualises a failure of sustainable initiatives on a global scale and their adaptation on a local scale specifically in the arena of clothing.