This practice-led research in the field of handmade ceramics explores what Africa means and how it is represented in ceramic practice. This is addressed through two research questions. The first is how can ceramics be used to picture, interpret and understand contemporary Africa? The second is what does ‘Africa’ or ‘African-ness’ mean in modern and contemporary ceramic practice set in various contexts, institutional and otherwise? The two questions address the construction and representation of African-ness respectively. There are many different grounds for understanding African-ness which are explored in detail.

This research aims to develop original creative practice, using the net curtain to reconsider the domestic, through the lenses of the uncanny and the gothic. The net curtain, hanging in the liminal space between the public and the private, is used to embody Freud’s 1919 definition of the uncanny, as the point of slippage between the homely and the unhomely. Also central to this research are ideas about the gothic and gendered domesticity, in particular, the gothic fiction of the mid-nineteenth century that critiqued the idea of ‘separate spheres’.

In this thesis, I will explore Korean1 design in relation to the following factors: Imperialism, the Cold War, rapid industrialisation, an improving economy, the advancement of technology, globalisation, Eastern ideals, and sustainable and inclusive design. The purpose of this research programme is to help define the central characteristics of Korean design, and propose suggestions about its future trajectory. I compare the history of Korean design with that of Japan and Russia, partly because this will help to explore the ways in which Imperialism, the Cold War and industrialisation have affected Korean design. Analysis will be presented that demonstrates how the political, social and economic circumstances present in each of the three countries have impacted upon the nature of their design. Furthermore, American and British design policy and practice will be frequently referenced since it has exerted an important influence on Korea, Japan and Russia. In addition, analysis will also be made of the impact of globalisation on design in Korea, Japan and Russia (in so doing particular emphasis will be placed on the automobile and electronic industries since these have been important drivers of increased globalisation).

Wyndham Lewis’s Enemy of the Stars has often been considered an unreadable and therefore an un-performable play script from the time when it was written and published in BLAST in 1914 as part of the Vorticist manifesto. The play was not performed until 1980 and there was just one subsequent staging in 1982. However, both of these performances were based on Lewis’s 1932 revision. Although the play appeared as a piece of written text in BLAST, it was considered by the Vorticists as visual imagery. With this approach in mind, this research sets out to investigate the visualisation of the 1914 version of the play as a work of theatrical art from a practitioner’s viewpoint.

This practice-based PhD thesis examines the proposition that during early motherhood an artist can establish visual strategies for sustaining a creative identity to counteract the stereotypical role of a mother in the patriarchal society of Taiwan. The thesis comprises six artworks, consisting of photographic self-portraits and related boxes, within an installation, together with a written component and an Artist’s Book.

This project reconsiders the politique des auteurs, especially the genesis, purpose and significance of that critical policy and method for film practice and criticism as conceived by François Truffaut, Jean-Luc Godard, Claude Chabrol, Jacques Rivette, Eric Rohmer and others in the pages of Cahiers du Cinéma during the 1950s. The hypothesis that the politique introduced a heuristic method for directorial personal expression is explored. Also considered are: the question of whether the designation auteur is solely within the means and authority of the director, or if the other creative collaborators, in particular the script-writer, might be designated a cinematic auteur, and, how specifically cinematic authorship might be constructed, or individual authorship might be achieved, within the collaborative process of filmmaking.

This research addresses two fundamental elements of metonymy in thought: firstly its definition, and secondly its function in creativity. It is a first foray into non-verbal metonymic creative thought, taken from an art practice perspective. This viewpoint offers access to how metonymy functions in material processes, and how it draws meaning from proximal contexts.

This research explores the possibility of introducing socially-engaged animation into restrictive social contexts, by the production of a film that raises issues concerning the contemporary perception and treatment of women in Iran. Through historical examination of Iranian new wave cinema and poetry, it explores stylistic and representational possibilities that help to provide a framework in which such practice can be attempted and discussed. Aspects of socially-engaged animation are examined by analysis of historical examples; the practical component of the PhD builds on these contextual studies to provide further understanding of the medium‟s potential for such expression.

This dissertation investigates formative films and more recent contemporary films in the tradition of British Structural/Materialist films for the purpose of the theoretical and practical development of an urban documentary practice in video.

Can a mode of trans-disciplinary visual inquiry, shifting and subjective, serve as an enquiry into location, an interrogation into the mechanics of belonging, and a reflection upon the relational connections between the local/rural and the national/global? This thesis provides a critical account of the role of a socially engaged 'activist' arts practice that seeks to address the tension between differing perspectives on place and space in the Burren, Co. Clare, in the West of Ireland. A body of work, Viscqueux, is a reflection upon my personal, psychological identification with the landscape of the region. This informed and underpinned two subsequent public artworks, Cross Land and X-PO. Both projects were catalytic actions that created or revived public space for exchange and collective interaction. Cross Land examined the agricultural and natural consequences of changes in landscape regulation and farming practices. X-PO is an interstitial space enabling new connections and social exchange between various 'publics' in the locality. It is a central argument of this thesis that expanded and inclusive definitions of arts practices play a key role in this new formation, producing new understandings of overlooked and often disregarded local knowledge. The research makes use of transdisciplinary and dialogical modes of visual inquiry as a reflexive enquiry into location, an interrogation of the mechanics of belonging and a reflection upon the relationship between the local/rural and the national/global. The thesis describes and sets this project within a particular context, one that reflects upon histories, circumstances, positions and socially engaged arts practices of both local and wider Significance. The physical demonstration of this body of work (the thesis) takes the form of exhibition documentation, video, photographic documentation of events, images and paintings together with a written text providing a critical account of/argument about the role of socially engaged 'activist' arts practice in a unique and specific site.