Masters Degrees (Visual Arts)

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    Re-membering home: situating an artmaking practice
    (Stellenbosch : Stellenbosch University, 2023-12) Davis, Bianca; Gunter, Elizabeth; Stellenbosch University. Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences. Dept. of Visual Arts.
    ENGLISH ABSTRACT: This research situates my artmaking practice, re-membering, within a broader discourse of home and belonging, in order to position it as a form of homemaking. Because the intimate space of home is bound with wider contexts, I briefly consider my own ideations of home and belonging within a South African context. Furthermore, I examine how a history of racial segregation, the remnants thereof, as well as widespread gender-based violence contribute to feelings of non-belonging in a place. Based on this, the nostalgic longing for home, evidenced in my practice, emerges out of the complex interplay of spatial, sentimental and temporal components that affect one’s sense of belonging. Ergo, in response to a supposed non-belonging or lack of home, I assert the exploration of homemaking, using a new materialist lens, in the form of affective co-constitutive material engagement, as well as through the agential capacity of memory through remembering. From remembering, as reconstructive activity, a re-membering, or ‘putting together’, is positioned as a physical practice of homemaking, that constitutes my artmaking. The theoretical underpinnings of remembering are expanded to include the establishment of their bodily component in the membrane, which translates practically into my use of a skin-like material in my artmaking. Therefore, in my practice, I position the skin as the materialisation of my homemaking, my re-membering. Through my practical and theoretical discoveries, I realise a deeper understanding of home, not as a static entity but as a relational, multilayered action.
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    Emka Amasiko Magwala Ndini: An Artistic Investigation of AmaXhosa through exploring Identity and Spirituality
    (Stellenbosch : Stellenbosch University, 2023-12 ) Botozo, Lwandiso; Walters, Ashley; Huigen-Conradie, Stephané; Stellenbosch University. Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences. Dept. of Visual Arts.
    ENGLISH ABSTRACT: This thesis explores the concept of identity and self-identification within the AmaXhosa culture. Through an art-practice-based approach to uncover meaning in personal narratives, it contends that colonialism, missionary education, and apartheid systematically eroded AmaXhosa identity by prioritising English and Western culture over indigenous languages, traditional customs, and religious beliefs. Employing a methodology rooted in practice-as- research, incorporating autoethnography, narrative theory, and collage as investigative methods, this thesis argues that personal narratives offer valuable insights into an individual's sense of place in the world. Additionally, the concept of framing is employed not only as a research methodology but also as a lens through which to interpret the practice, artworks, and written content of this thesis.
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    Drawing from the past to plot the future: Freirean methodologies for socially engaged youth arts education in South Africa
    (Stellenbosch : Stellenbosch University, 2023-12) Williams, Scott Eric; Van Robbroeck, Lize; Stellenbosch University. Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences. Dept. of Visual Arts.
    ENGLISH ABSTRACT: This thesis investigates the presence and relevance of Paulo Freire’s theories to the non-formal arts education sector in South Africa during the Apartheid and post-Apartheid periods. It also engages the writings of key critical pedagogues who built on Freire’s work and explores how Paulo Freire and his pedagogical legacy served as a foundation for the dialogical and humanizing educational methodologies at three Cape Town-based organizations: the Community Arts Project, The Vakalisa Art Associates, and the District Six Homecoming Centre. As an outcome of this investigation, the thesis justifies the continued relevance of a socially engaged pedagogy in the praxis of contemporary forms of non-formal arts education for the youth.
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    Exploring solutions for the implementation of remote learning in South Africa as a result of the Covid-19 pandemic
    (Stellenbosch : Stellenbosch University, 2023-12) Ströh, Nadia; Costandius, Elmarie; Stellenbosch University. Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences. Dept. of Visual Arts.
    ENGLISH ABSTRACT: Covid-19 was declared a global pandemic by the World Health Organization on 11 March 2020. This study explored innovative solutions for implementing remote learning in South Africa due to the Covid-19 pandemic. The Covid-19 pandemic and the ensuing lockdown restrictions forced schools to adopt remote learning. The aim of this study was to determine (1)how the drastic shift from face-to-face learning to remote learning was dealt with by teachers, (2) the advantages and disadvantages of remote learning, (3) what remote learning revealed about the daily challenges teachers and learners in rural areas must face, (4) which solutions schools and teachers produced to continue teaching and learning without the necessary resources to implement remote learning and (5) how social media could assist in reaching a wider audience to improve remote teaching and learning. This study made use of a critical review of existing literature that focuses on remote learning in a South African Covid-19 context. Economic, social, political and environmental transformation has always been one of South Africa’s greatest challenges, and the Covid-19 situation emphasised this reality. Inequality in education is still a reality in a democratic South Africa. This is clearly visible in the decision-making process when remote learning was implemented as a solution to combat the disruption of Covid-19 to education. Any solutions implemented to limit the effects of Covid-19 on education mostly offered support to privileged learners. Teachers and learners in rural and less-privileged areas were left behind due to a lack of resources, Internet connection, digital devices and assistance from parents or guardians. The literature review showed that there is value in using web applications to enrich the educational process if Internet connections are available and stable. Social media apps such as Facebook, YouTube, WhatsApp and TikTok enabled teachers to think outside the box and open new communication channels to learners during the Covid-19 pandemic. In the digital age, learners are already informally using social media as an educational resource and the implication of this study is that with proper planning and resource distribution, the Department of Basic Education would be able to enrich teaching and learning in South Africa to enable quality education.
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    The art of drag in Shanghai: Navigating local/ global tensions in practice- a case study
    (Stellenbosch : Stellenbosch University, 2023- 12) Pryde, Shelley; Costandius, Elmarie; Stellenbosch University. Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences. Dept of Visual Sciences.
    ENGLISH ABSTRACT: This thesis discusses a case study of a group of drag artists based in Shanghai, China. After living and practising as a drag king in Shanghai for four years myself, I became curious about how the city’s local and expat drag artists positioned their practice in relation to queer globalisations, local restrictions, and Western dominance. The art of drag has become increasingly visible worldwide, largely due to RuPaul’s Drag Race and its surrounding media landscape, and as such exerts a significant influence on the global dissemination of LGBTQ+ cultures. Examining queer rights and cultures in the Global South, there is a concern that the vast transmission of American, post-Stonewall LGBTQ+ discourse constructs a universal story of queerness that obscures non-Western queer ontologies, resistances, and cultural productions. Simultaneously however, to consider globalisation as necessarily assimilation into Western cultural forms would deny the agency of non-Western queer movements and cultural productions to respond meaningfully to Western dominance. Theoretical perspectives of ‘global gay’ discourse, queer temporality, and Chinese-centric queer theories were incorporated to question how Shanghai’s drag artists navigate local and global in their practice, and the extent to which they question the authority of both state socialism and globalised capitalism, to offer new possibilities for queer knowledge production. In total, seven drag artists and one LGBTQ+ venue owner participated in the study. Convenience sampling and snowball sampling were employed to gather participants. Data consisted of semi-structured interviews and drag performance video samples. Interview transcripts were analysed using open coding and compared with analyses of relevant video samples. While the influence of Euro-American forms was documented and acknowledged, other perspectives revealed more nuanced and critical conceptualisations of the binary between copy and original, the frictions inherent in cultural exchange, and diverse forms of resistance. Shanghai’s drag scene is evolving in distinct ways, incorporating both global and local influences and cultural traditions. With queer knowledge still largely attributed to the West, it is important to recognise how China has its own queer forms and ideas to offer that are deeply engaged in the global conversation, despite the lack of visibility beyond small grassroots communities or underground ‘scenes’.