Dealing with one’s mental health after experiencing physical trauma is brave but sharing one’s own experience with a broader public opens up an important conversation about trauma and mental health...Show moreDealing with one’s mental health after experiencing physical trauma is brave but sharing one’s own experience with a broader public opens up an important conversation about trauma and mental health. Contemporary emerging photographers deal with their trauma through self-portrait photography, which has a therapeutic function that is self-initiated but also opens up a bigger conversation. By showing visible and invisible traces of their traumatic experiences by taking self-portraits, these photographers deal with their personal traumas via self-reflection. This thesis uses visual analysis to analyse two main case studies and their peers to see how self-portrait photography can be used to reflect on mental trauma after experiencing physical trauma. The aim is to see how self-portrait photography specifically can be used to reflect the mental trauma that is left after having suffered from physical trauma that was inflicted onto the body.Show less
In 1992, the High Court of Australia took the radical step of breaking with Australian legal precedent to determine that the continent was not, in fact, terra nullius at the time of British...Show moreIn 1992, the High Court of Australia took the radical step of breaking with Australian legal precedent to determine that the continent was not, in fact, terra nullius at the time of British colonisation. As a result of this landmark case, Indigenous Australians became able to obtain recognition of Native Title over their traditional lands and waters. This fundamental change to Australian land law has required the legal system to accept Indigenous forms of evidence as claimants seek recognition of Native Title. In some instances, this evidence has taken the form of contemporary, acrylic paintings: specifically, Ngurrara Canvas II in Application of the Ngurrara People, and Women’s Native Title Painting and Men’s Native Title Painting in Application of the Spinifex People. While scholars from anthropology, art history, legal studies, Indigenous studies and cultural studies have examined the use of these paintings in Native Title claims, assertions by most of these researchers that the paintings constitute evidence in the legal meaning of the word have not been securely bedded in an appropriate interdisciplinary framework. Taking an interdisciplinary approach spanning the fields of art history and law, this thesis asks how the National Native Title Tribunal and the Federal Court of Australia have determined the probative value of these acrylic on canvas artworks by Indigenous Australian claimants in Native Title claims. In doing so, it examines how Australian art historian Rex Butler’s concept of “meaningfulness without meaning” (drawn from a discussion regarding the relationship between Indigenous art and Abstract Expressionism) can clarify how decision makers treat painted evidence. The thesis concludes that when determining Native Title claims, decision makers may legitimately accept Indigenous artworks as evidence of continuous connection to Country which the law requires, without requiring an understanding of what an artwork ‘means,’ and that these artworks can be considered transitional objects which transcend legal understandings of tradition.Show less
Research master thesis | Arts and Culture (research) (MA)
closed access
This written and visual research project sets out to consider how the notion of opacity marks photographs of environmental despoliation. It argues that opacity can be a critically potent framework...Show moreThis written and visual research project sets out to consider how the notion of opacity marks photographs of environmental despoliation. It argues that opacity can be a critically potent framework in photographic practices that engage with the ecological crisis by means of its construction of more affective modes of communicating a phenomenon that is itself often marked by incomprehensibility. In doing so, it conducts a comparative visual analysis of two photographic series: Anthropocene by Edward Burtynsky and Oil and Moss by Igor Tereshkov. It concludes that Burtynsky’s series constructs an awesome visuality that pursues a revelatory approach but, in actuality, ends up reasserting a set of beliefs that are already widely known, consequently not inciting new, critical modes of contemplating the ecological crisis. Tereshkov’s work, on the other hand, works to recombine the aesthetic with the critical; focusing on the interactions between the images’ visuality and their tactility, this thesis argues that Oil and Moss’ critical potency is established by means of its destabilising, disruptive aesthetics of the opaque. The ecological crisis is also a crisis of imagination: as humans, we struggle to grasp and make sense of the scale and severity of the devastation that appears to be creeping closer and closer. As such, we are in need of new, innovative modes of imagining our physical environments and how we relate to them. Photography, in its simultaneous ability to remember the past, to contemplate the future, and to imagine alternative iterations of the present, is one itinerary through which that may be achieved.Show less
This thesis explores the application of corporeally bereft urban landscapes in the medium of photography. In my case study, I examine Mauricio Lima's photographs as he retraces Eugéne Atget's steps...Show moreThis thesis explores the application of corporeally bereft urban landscapes in the medium of photography. In my case study, I examine Mauricio Lima's photographs as he retraces Eugéne Atget's steps in Paris during the height of the COVID pandemic of 2020. I aim to provide insights into the multiple roles and meanings that “empty places” can take on and connote. To elucidate, I engage with concepts such as the decontextualized place, Benjamin's notion of the Optical Unconscious, rephotography, and appropriation. Additionally, I question the use, shifts, and possible expanded meaning gained through the combination of images with text.Show less
Post-photography, similar to the post-archival, can be considered a consequence of the change in how we relate to memory and history. As a result of the abundance of information, accelerated by...Show morePost-photography, similar to the post-archival, can be considered a consequence of the change in how we relate to memory and history. As a result of the abundance of information, accelerated by social media and the Internet, representations of the past have changed drastically. As a result, the way we memorize the past is under severe duress. This thesis focuses on these representations of the past, specifically on contemporary representations of archival material. It first discusses the conjunction of documentary photography and artworks concerning the archive. After this, it turns to two case studies to adequately analyse contemporary changes in the content and aesthetics of photographic as well as archival practices. In the analysis of Walid Raad’s The Atlas Group and Max Pinckers’ and MMWVA’s (Mau Mau War Veterans Associations) Unhistories, special attention is paid to important photographic concepts such as time and space. Essentially, it will offer insights into how representation and association of archival events can be reframed and remediated using photography. This research will also offer insights into the political value of aesthetic and formal reactions on the photographic archive as an institution and as a means of representation.Show less
