This thesis consists of two parts. The first is a series of photographic essays documenting the lived experience of a woman who is HIV positive and a group of young females who are socially marginalised.
The written component attempts to underlabour in a philosophical sense for the artistic/creative element of the thesis. That is, it seeks to take on a range of theoretical issues that cluster around the practice of documentary photography. By clarifying these issues the thesis endeavours to act as a stimulus to artistic practice and also to explain and introduce that practice to a wider audience.
Among the theoretical issues addressed is the ontological status of the documentary photograph. Here, the thesis draws upon Roy Bhaskar's Critical Realism to suggest a rational alternative to postmodernist scepticism and naive realism.
The thesis also takes on a range of ethical problems. Most important of these is the question whether the relationship between the photographer and her subject is inherently exploitative. The thesis attempts, in this case, to unite Emmauel Levinas' philosophy of the Other with Critical Realist Ethics. Here, the thesis advances a novel differentiation of the Other and combines this with the Critical Realist notion of ontological depth. The argument of the thesis is that the nature of the contract between the photographer and her subject depends on which Other the subject is regarded as.
In addition, the thesis explores the social and gender dimensions of documentary photography concentrating in particular on the Farm Security Admininstration photography in America in the 1930s, and the radical self-imaging of the British photographer Jo Spence and the Pop Star Madonna.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:ADTP/265070 |
| Date | January 2003 |
| Creators | Mitropoulos, Maria Michael |
| Publisher | Queensland University of Technology |
| Source Sets | Australiasian Digital Theses Program |
| Detected Language | English |
| Rights | Copyright Maria Mitropoulos |
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