This thesis explores how our notion of mapness is related to our knowledge, reading and understanding of the complex visual language of the map, through an investigation of how we relate to the way maps look and the structures that underpin them.The processes of creating map-like artifacts through the author's own practice are reported upon and inform a drawing forth of historical, theoretical and practical perspectives that act In conjunction to influence the artistic and design expression to communicate mapness.

This thesis draws upon an interdisciplinary approach characteristic of a performance perspective to examine the ways in which performances of identity and belonging are constituted through social dance, play and the engagement of city space. The study is based upon detailed observational and participatory data gathered over the course of one year (2005-2006) while attending indie dance parties within the urban centre of East Vancouver. The research follows the movement of Vancouver's artist-identified youth who strive to create something outside of the 'big-business' dance clubs that occupy the city of Vancouver's appointed entertainment district, weaving together an alternate, complex and mobile portrait of the city in play. The thesis begins with the concept of the mainstream and argues that though the concept manifests sometimes as an ambiguous construct that indie youth define themselves against, the mainstream is much more than an imaginary entity. The mainstream is both material and geographical while the relationship between dominant culture and some youth subcultures are mutually dependent. The concept of social space features prominently within the thesis; interviewees constitute themselves in relation to what it means to be 'in' and 'of' East Vancouver, revealing their identities as closely tied to place and also to social class. Identities are not only acquired negatively (in opposition), but are also positively acquired, through constitutive practices. Noting that social class is materially based, I argue that it is also both performed and performative, as a persistent mode of distinction within the indie scene. These complexities of performance are approached through the rubric of social dancing, a playful yet grounded practice that is productive precisely because it enables analyses that are at the same time social, spatial and embodied. Indie dance events offer the opportunity to connect participants to place (East Vancouver) and through body movement (dancing) to reaffirm membership in this group. / Arts, Faculty of / Gender, Race, Sexuality and Social Justice, Institute for / Graduate

This study of behaviour as displayed in art activities was carried out in the Child Art Research and Demonstration Centre, the University of British Columbia, Vancouver, British Columbia, from October, 1961 to March, 1962. The behaviour of ten individuals ranging in age from six to fifteen was observed and recorded in the form of time samples, anecdotal records and rating scales. This study consists of: 1. A survey of documents written by authorities in the field of art education. 2. A general analysis of the techniques used in the collection and treatment of the data. 3. Reports of individual cases indicating qualitative and quantitative results of the study. The need to substitute facts for opinions has prompted the study. In general, this study has disclosed that no significant relationships exist between certain personality characteristics and behaviour characteristics as displayed in art activities. Although the number of subjects has been limited, yet the accurate and detailed conclusions are able to supply topics for further investigation. / Education, Faculty of / Graduate

This dissertation presents the life story of Freda Diesing, artist, teacher, and the first Haida woman known to become a professional carver. Diesing holds the Haida name Skilquewat, which translates as the descriptive phrase "On the trail of Property Woman." This phrase makes an appropriate title, as it reflects both the research process and the form of the written result. Diesing's life is not presented here as a monolith discovered, singular and clearly bounded, but rather as an organic accretive identity, constantly in the process of construction and negotiation. Diesing defines herself in relation to her mother and her grandmother, and her stories tell how they negotiated their own identities during times of rapid cultural change. For all three women changes in Haida culture under pressure from wider Canadian society tended to emphasize the role of women in the domestic sphere, as wives and mothers, while mmimizing their wider political and social impact. Diesing, a woman of mixed ethnic decent, who married late, has no children, lives only on the mainland and grows increasingly independent and active as an elderly widow, resists easy classification. She performs her own identity variably, depending upon her audience. By developing her identity as a Haida artist and teacher Diesing has been able to negotiate a position of continuing respect and influence appropriate to her chiefly heritage, despite inauspicious circumstances in her own life and in the contemporary history of the Haida people. Yet it is not being recognized as an artist or a master carver that has been Diesing's primary intention. Rather she has used her art itself as a tool in achieving a goal she defines as most important: helping both Natives and non-Natives understand and take pride in the indigenous cultural heritage of the Northwest Coast. More than an artist, Freda Diesing is a teacher. Through the stories she tells, and through her own life's example, she reminds us all of the continuing vitality of Northwest Coast cultures, and especially of the important contributions of women in Coastal society. / Arts, Faculty of / Anthropology, Department of / Graduate

Thesis (M.A. (Fine Art))--University of the Witwatersrand, Faculty of Humanities, School of Art, 2016 / This thesis examines the concept of authorship in literary and artistic practice by travelling the concept of authorship from literature to artistic practice. To achieve this the thesis will be guided by the questions, ʻwhat is an author?ʼ, ʻwhen is authorship?ʼ and more importantly the title question, what difference does it make who is speaking? To unpack these questions and those that will follow, my research will begin by thinking through the idea of authorship and authorial voice in literature and to identify the ways in which this is performed in artistic practice. Additionally the thesis will explore the authorship and authority, particularly how the author uses the power of language to impose authority over the reader and the West language still holds power the postcolonial subject or authors. In retaliation of this authority, the thesis also looks at how postcolonial writers/artists have developed a language of power. This analysis will be directed by a selection of theorists, writers and artists. Theorists such as Roland Barthes and Michel Foucault whose questions on authorship are the bases of my research and Miek Bal Traveling Concepts in the Humanities, Jacques Derrida Of Grammatology, Ngugi Wa Thiongo Writers in Politics, Walter Benjamin The Task of the Translator and Jean Fisherʼs Embodied Subversion as well as other supporting reading. In addition to that, investigating methods of writing in Dambudzo Marecheraʼs novella House of Hunger and Willimam S. Burroughs The Naked Lunch and how these ideas are reflected by artistic practice .To help envisage the idea of the ʻartist as authorʼ I look very closely at specific works of three postcolonial artist and their relationship with language. I have selected works by artists Kemang Wa Lehulereʼs Some Deleted Scenes Too, Tracey Roseʼs Span I, and Danh Voʼs Last letter of Saint Théophane Vénard to his father before he was decapitated copied by Phung Vo as well as drawing from my own practice. / MT2017

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This study is an investigation of the life and work of émigré artists who arrived in Great Britain as refugees after the 1956 revolution in Hungary and after the crushing of the Prague Spring in 1968. The artists selected for examination represent different aspects of cultural production and range from painters through graphic artists and designers to film-makers. The work of these artists is discussed in the wider cultural, social and political context of Cold War Europe. The human aspect, that is, the way in which exile affected individual artists and their lives and altered their perception and artistic output, is a central thread of the thesis. Other key issues that are considered include: the relationship between art and politics, exile and identity, cultural exchange and issues of communication with a foreign audience. The main argument is based on the analysis of selected artworks created in exile and the thesis is structured around eight case studies which explore specific aspects of the uprooted experience in the context of artistic creativity in exile. The major themes which the case studies focus on are: questions of identity and loss in the films of Robert Vas, the feeling of dislocation and alienation in György Gordon’s self portraits, the problems of artistic acceptance in the context of the career of cartoonist Edma, the transposition of Hungarian landscape painting traditions into English art by Gyula Sajo, the origins and artistic benefits of Josef Koudelka’s wandering existence, forms of Czech Functionalism in Eva Jiricna’s architectural designs, nostalgia and memory in the paintings of Jiri Borsky and Jan Mladovsky’s conceptual explorations of Eastern and Western cultural identities. The case studies are used to identify common artistic, philosophical and theoretical threads which connect the visual responses of the examined artists to the wider subject of art in exile.

This thesis will aim to investigate the extent to which Tracey Rose's Ciao Bella can be said to allegorically perform a dialectical enfolding of the dichotomous categories of meaning/nonmeaning; image/text; past/present and original/translation. The dual concepts of performance and performativity will be utilized as a means to explore the notion of interpretation as a meaning-making process and as an engagement between artist, artwork and viewer that is necessarily open-ended and in a state of constant change and flux. Rose's performance of Ciao Bella will be read as one that questions the illusion of unmediated representation by parodying and creatively misreading a multiplicity of visual, textual and musical representations so as to foreground the politics of representation. The representational figure of allegory, as one that defines itself in opposition to the Romantic conception of the unified symbol, will be put to work so as to reveal the ways in which Rose's performance works to critically undermine various positivistic attitudes toward self-identity, gender, race, politics, history, authorial intention and interpretation.