For a contemporary art practice, what does it mean to resist? This essay will discuss the idea of resistance in the present day using the work of Karl Marx as the key starting point. If he is foundational to the understanding of capitalism, then later philosophers such as Frederic Jameson and Jacques Ranciere have added considerably to the relevance of Marx, and added their own critical engagement with the art world. Ranciere advocates dissensus, which he sees as being counter to the conformity that liberalism and concensus bring. Political philosopher Chantal Mouffe also advocates dissensus, replacing antagonism with the idea of agonism. There is disagreement but as in sport both parties recognize the legitimacy of their opponent. This is why identity is so important to democracy, for without difference there is no real choice, and so the nature of identity and the subject become crucial factors in conceiving of a way to resist, and a way of being as an artist.

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.

This extended essay explores a historical investigation into the connections between women and machines, particularly focusing on the traditionally gendered processes of sewing, weaving and other processes deemed ‘handicrafts’ and how they parallel techniques in the evolution of the technologies we recognise today. Within this relationship, the nature of these acts to provide comfort is investigated and related to the practice of art making. This historical lineage is examined in the present day where digital and electronic technologies impact everyday life and cause new a brand of anxieties that require a fresh approach to healing and soothing. Through the analysis of this research my practical input and output are informed and result in the development of an installation of objects that examine the electronic object and how it can be imbued with or reflect these realities.

This exegesis tells the story of my Master of Design project, Embarrassment of Riches. During this project I have gleaned obsolete furniture pieces and operated on them to present new possibilities. This text discusses the body of work I have created in the context of three main ideas: the use of gleaning, intervention and the role played by memory in rekindling desire. I have focussed on making in a heuristic, research-through-design practice, testing ideas through making/reflecting and then developing my ideas further in new pieces. Combining this actionresearch method with bricolage has enabled me to critically self-reflect on my practice. Through this I have discovered that I can continue to design and create objects in an age of overproduction and consumption. With ecological considerations in mind I can make obsolete objects desirable (again) by encouraging people to feel intimate with them. I intervene in the objects’ interstices to suggest histories that kindle engagement and attachment. The interstice has been a rich source of inspiration, not only as site of intervention, but as site where experimentation occurs, a process by which objects are found and a space where new genres develop.

The focus of this thesis is an examination of domestic handicrafts and the significance of these to Australian women's lives. The topic focuses on how the making of simple and ordinary handicrafts provides women with an escape from the domestic demands of day to day life. This thesis incorporating a body of ceramic artefacts and written exegesis is the result of an exploration of comfort and safety found in handicrafts and clay. In addition, the concepts of repetition and extraordinary ordinariness have been investigated. Exploration of this topic has required an examination of handicraft techniques, prompting me to confront and consider my own domestic situation and consider my own approach to and relationship with clay. For the final series of artworks in response to the research I have drawn inspiration from historical women's handicrafts techniques and made reference to these within the ceramic artefacts presented. Research into the area of handicraft as escape has prompted exploration into works by artists not only in the field of ceramics but those working with other media and therefore enriching my response to the topic. My research has provoked me to translate and transform women's craft skills to create a framework for my own works in clay in addition to establishing a context for my work within the field of contemporary ceramics and more broadly within contemporary visual arts. Among the results of the project has been the development of a new approach to the medium of clay incorporating innovative techniques, as well as a greater conceptual framework within my own ceramics practice.

No description available.

Prior to the 1950s, visual culture within tribal environments could be separated into customary and non-customary. In the early 19th century, customary visual culture maintained visual correspondence with prior painted and carved models of the pre-contact period. In the latter part of the 19th century, non-customary painted and carved imagery inspired by European naturalism informed tribal visual culture. This accommodation of European imagery and practice was trans-cultural in its translation to tribal environments. In the 1960s, an innovative trans-customary art form evolved outside tribal environments, fusing customary visual culture and modernism. This trans-customary art form, which maintained visual empathy with customary form of the 19th century, was introduced into the tribal environment, initially, in a painted mural in 1973, and subsequently in a multimedia mural in 1975. In 1989 and 1990, this trans-customary Maori art practice informed the art of the Taharora Project at Mihikoinga marae in Ohineakai. In this Project, the 1970s transcustomary Maori art precedents were extended with non-customary form and practice. The thesis employs tataitanga kaupapa toi as a paradigm for Maori cultural relativity and relevance en-framing form, content and genealogy. Annexed to this paradigm are a range of methods: a tataitanga reo method for interpreting Maori language texts; a tataitanga korero method, conjoining a kaupapa Maori and an iconographic approach, for interpreting meaning in tribal visual culture, and a tataitanga whakairo method, incorporating stylistic analysis as formal sequence, semiology and intrinsic perception, for analysing a continuum of stylistic development from the Rawheoro School of carving to the Taharora Project. The Taharora Project constitutes the case study where tribal visual culture and contemporary art within tribal environments are contextualised in a trans-cultural continuum. The critical question that underpins this thesis is how do form, content and genealogy contribute to art that resonates with Maori? The thesis concludes that trans-cultural practice in contemporary art can resonate with Maori if the art maintains visual correspondence or visual empathy with customary tribal form. In their absence, cultural resonance can be achieved through a grounding of the content, informing the art, in a paradigm of Maori cultural relativity and relevance, a tataitanga kaupapa toi. The genealogy of the artist is a further determinant for resonance.

This thesis explores the epistemological shift in my photographic practice from an ethnographic position to that of surrealist documentary. In charting this shift I have consider the use of documentary photography by the historical Surrealist movement ,and, the synthesis of surrealism and ethnography found in the English group Mass- Observation. The photograph’s oscillation between indexical record and mystical emanation forms a key position in understanding these two groups belief in the found images ability to describe a repressed reality located in the mass unconscious. Drawing on the Lacanian model of the Real used by Slavoj Zizek as a tool of cultural critique I suggest a new framework for a surrealist documentary practice. In bringing the methodology of the early Surrealists into a contemporary context I consider the position of suburbia as a new terrain vague in relationship to the fantasy of the Real.

Temporal Landscapes is a research project concerned with culture-nature relations in the context of contemporary industrial land use in New Zealand; explored visually through the photographic representation and presentation of gold mining sites – former, current and prospective – in the Hauraki region. In the current period of industrial capitalism, featuring the mass exploitation of natural resources, nature is commonly thought of as subservient to humankind. This stance, with its origin in scientific ideology of the 17th Century, is interesting to consider in relation to contemporary notions of landscape, and the ‘ideal’ in nature. In New Zealand, a balance is being sought between interests of sustainability and conservation, and of industry and economy. This is not to say that industry opposes environmental safeguards; in contrast, sustainable management including the rehabilitation of land post-industrialisation is integral to modern mining practice in New Zealand. With this emphasis on controlled industrial progress, two key factors emerge. Firstly, this level of control implicates itself as a utopian vision, and secondly, industrialisation is advocated as a temporary situation, with industrial land as transitory, on the path to rehabilitation. The research question of Temporal Landscapes asks; in considering contemporary industrial land use in New Zealand within a utopian framework – focussing specifically on gold mining in the Hauraki Region – has our ideal in nature become that of a controlled, even post-industrial, landscape? The photographic representation of these sites offers a means to explore and express their visual temporality. With the expectation of industrial sites as fleeting and rehabilitated sites as static utopias, it would seem that this industrial process is a kind of contemporary ideal. Presented as a flickering projection piece, 23 Views. (Prospective gold mining site, Golden Valley, Hauraki, 2008 / Martha gold mine and Favona gold mine, Waihi, Hauraki, 2008), and a set of selectively lit prints, Untitled I. (Garden, pit rim walkway, Martha gold mine, Waihi, Hauraki, 2008), Untitled II. (View of pit, former Golden Cross gold mine, Waitekauri Valley, Hauraki, 2008), and Untitled III. (View of water treatment pond, former Golden Cross gold mine, Waitekauri Valley, Hauraki, 2008), they act as landscapes of partial comprehension.