THE INDEFINITIVE SELF:
subject as process in visual art
This doctoral study is comprised of both creative work and accompanying critical study and exegesis, each comprising 50 per cent of the total weight of submission. The body of research develops a feminist genealogical methodology to explore the study’s central idea: that envisioning the feminine subject as process rather than a fixed entity enables political agency without recourse to rigid essentialism.
The creative work, a public space installation in South Brisbane Cemetery at Dutton Park, is titled Last Drinks Gentlemen Please and traces the life and character of my great, great aunt Cecilia Mary Tennant (1875-1938). Documentation and discussion of this work is included in the exegesis and can also be viewed online at the web address http://www.GMTplus10.info/.
The thesis presents a critical contextualisation analysing the work of the artists Tracey Moffatt, Mona Hatoum and Pipilotti Rist, as well as my own practice, and identifies key strategies enabling the representation of identity as process. Finally, this study proposes the figure of the Aunt as an elective relationship that enables both intimacy and agency beyond patriarchal constructions of the feminine.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:ADTP/265132 |
| Date | January 2005 |
| Creators | Pedersen, Courtney Brook |
| Publisher | Queensland University of Technology |
| Source Sets | Australiasian Digital Theses Program |
| Detected Language | English |
| Rights | Copyright 2005 Courtney Brook Pedersen |
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