The focus of this qualitative, arts-based inquiry was to understand how disabling
illness might be transformed through art. A/r/tography -- art/research/teaching and
writing, was the method used to explore and understand the meaning(s) held within the
art: Border Crossings -- a conceptual, figurative, sculptural installation. The installation
embodied the experience of disabling illness, symbolically depicting power relationships,
identities, subjectivities and the multi-dimensional nature of being, of one coming up
against the institution, the illness and the self. Guided by the work of Heidegger
(Hermeneutic Circle), Deleuze and Guatarri (Rhizome and The body without Organs) and
Foucault (Power Relationships), the A/r/tographer examined the installation through the
lens of the poststructural feminist writers Grosz, Davis, Gatens, Weedon, Moss and Dyck
with a focus on the body/subjective to explore notions central to understanding being in a
body. A further analysis through art theorists Eisner, Allen and A/r/tographers Irwin and
Springgay’s aesthetic perspectives, explicated the nuance of how art transformed the ill
researcher and larger community.
The results of the inquiry revealed a multi-dimensional, generative process of
opening multiple thresholds of complexity, understanding and transformation of the
experience of disabling illness for inquirer, and the art participant/observers/larger
community. The research illuminates the value of A/r/tography as a potent means of
inquiry into lived experience and how art enhances the understandings and possibilities
for the transformation of the experience of disabling illness/lived experience. / Graduate
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:uvic.ca/oai:dspace.library.uvic.ca:1828/3762 |
| Date | 22 December 2011 |
| Creators | Yalte, Zulis |
| Contributors | Doane, Gweneth Hartrick, Trueit, Donna |
| Source Sets | University of Victoria |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Thesis |
| Rights | Available to the World Wide Web |
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