Masters Degrees (Visual Arts)
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- ItemRe-making to re-member: Exploring a living archiving methodology with sensory-based participatory design(Stellenbosch : Stellenbosch University, 2022-12) Solomons, Ashley; Perold-Bull, Karolien; Oelofsen, Marietjie; Stellenbosch University. Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences. Dept. of Visual Arts.ENGLISH ABSTRACT: The ideological system of coloniality may have woven an underlying influence of oppression into the seams of contemporary South African society. This influence of oppression has often manifested through overwhelming confrontations in everyday South African life – including violent social ideologies, a reductive visual culture, and the silencing of diverse knowledge systems. Processes of designing, archiving, and re-searching in South Africa reflect an influence of coloniality in dislocated methodologies, reductive representations of local life, and a lack of epistemic freedom. Our local practices of designing, archiving, and re-searching may be dismembered from our local ways of life and therefore may be in need of re-membering. The local digital archive, Through the Eyes of Survivors of Apartheid: Life Despite Pain and Suffering, embodies a three-fold designing, archiving, and re-search space in need of re-membering beyond reductive and inaccessible traditions. This practice-led research process therefore explored sensory-based participatory design as a potential open-ended, expansive, and accessible methodology within the context of Through the Eyes of Survivors of Apartheid: Life Despite Pain and Suffering archive. The research process flowed from three initial inquiries that centered the practices of researching, archiving, and designing. Firstly, participating actors and I explored how open-ended forms of re-searching might unearth more accessible practices of doing re-search within the context of Stellenbosch University. Secondly, we explored how open-ended forms of archiving together might invite more accessible local archiving traditions. Lastly, we explored how open-ended processes of re-making together might unearth local design methodologies and visual languages. The re-search perhaps prompts space for the continuation of existing South African life narratives in archives, acknowledges the legitimacy of local knowledges, and invites an accessible space for sharing local knowledge – both now and in future. The re-search provides an example of critically reflexive decoloniality in action. It demonstrates how sensory-based design can be employed as a means to explore a more open-ended and accessible methodology for policy makers and practitioners within the contemporary South African archiving, designing, and re-search spheres.
- ItemTransformation at Stellenbosch University: Facebook and the framing of the everyday(Stellenbosch : Stellenbosch University, 2022-12) Sutherland, James Andrew; van der Wal, Ernst; Stellenbosch University. Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences. Dept. of Visual Arts.ENGLISH ABSTRACT: This thesis responds to the ongoing project of transformation in South African higher education. I am specifically interested in the visual representation of institutional transformation, with Stellenbosch University and its Rooiplein serving as the focus for this investigation. In the broader sense, this thesis investigates how the idea of transformation is presented by a historically advantaged white Afrikaans university in the wake of the South African Fallist movements. My own research focuses on the visual and discursive representation of ‘the everyday’ on the Rooiplein, which is a prominent public space at Stellenbosch University. I am interested in the role that photographs and text play in the framing of ‘the everyday’ (of the ‘commonplace’, the ‘standard’, or the ‘ordinary’), and how this is represented on the university’s Facebook page. My engagement with the images and text published by Stellenbosch University on social media (in the years 2014-2018) explores the complex discourses on inclusion/exclusion as well as belonging/alienation on which the university was founded. As this thesis demonstrates, Stellenbosch University communicates an idealistic perspective that, on the face of it, has embraced and enacted a transformative model with some success. This study engages critically with this framing of a transformed university by looking to various realities that escape the university’s visual framing and normative understanding of transformation that is represented on social media.
- ItemExploring the transition from art student to art educator through visual diaries(2022-04) Dennis, Terri; Costandius, Elmarie; Stellenbosch University. Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences. Dept. of Visual Arts.ENGLISH ABSTRACT: My journey as an art student, volunteering facilitator and later as an arts educator has thus far been riddled with the fear of failure, a common experience for anyone hoping to have a positive social impact in a country as economically unequal as South Africa is. The main research question was formulated as follows: What are the challenging aspects regarding the transition from art student to art educator? In addition, I ask: a) How did my own art and art education journey influence my educator identity? b) How did my experience of working in various communities with different racial and cultural groups influence my educator identity? c) To what extent did the use of visual diaries help me to reflect on my educator identity? The aim of the study was to share my own experiences of becoming an art facilitator with the hope that it would assist other young art educators in their teaching and learning journey to become art facilitators. I explore these questions using four theoretical perspectives, namely empowerment, power hierarchies, critical citizenship education and educator identity, which formed the framework for this study. Empowerment can be described as a practice through which individuals define their own needs and priorities and take action towards attaining them (Rowlands 2001:15). The concept of power hierarchies in the learning environment is highlighted as a framework, and the importance of understanding and navigating different spaces and shifting power positions is crucial for facilitators. Citizenship education aims to prepare people for living in diverse societies and emphasises aspects of human rights, democracy and social justice. Various researchers have engaged identity and have argued that identity is something that we all engage in, instead of something we have, and we therefore perform our identity. Benwell and Stokoe (2006:49) go even further by describing identity as constructed and produced moment-by-moment in everyday conversation. In this thesis I have used of autoethnography as a methodology and my visual diaries to assist me in remembering and reflecting on my journey from an art student to an art educator. Autoethnography is an approach to research and writing that aims to describe and systematically analyse personal experience in order to understand cultural experiences (Ellis 2004; Jones 2005). In auto-biographical work, the writer must read, explore and discover to create knowledge that is useful for themselves and the reader. When this work is judged by the reader as honest and valuable, the research could be considered credible. I have used my visual diaries as reference to construct my learning and teaching experiences. In auto-biographical work, the writer must read, explore and discover to create knowledge that is useful for themselves and the reader. When this work is judged by the reader as honest and valuable, the research could be considered credible. The biggest challenges in my transition from art student to art educator have been developing confidence, building relationships with all learners, and developing structure and managing my time effectively.
- ItemProcessing self: negotiating the tensions of Muslim womanhood through art-making in South Africa.(Stellenbosch : Stellenbosch University, 2022-04) Deaney, Rushda; Huigen-Conradie, Stephane E.; Van Robbroeck, Lize; Stellenbosch University. Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences. Dept. of Visual Arts.ENGLISH ABSTRACT: This thesis investigates processing the sociocultural complexities of being a South African Muslim woman, both locally and globally. The labyrinth of being a Muslim woman lends itself to questioning my Muslim identity in relation to the Middle East, and as a South African Muslim woman, how themes like gender, materiality, intertextuality, and my personal experiences influence my art practice. In my thesis, I use auto ethnography as a self-reflexive research method in the form of journal entries to motivate my artwork. These personal narratives inform a practice-led material inquiry into ritual and heirloom objects for me to better understand my faith.
- ItemContemporary jewellery as gnosis: interpreting alchemy through contemporary jewellery objects(Stellenbosch : Stellenbosch University, 2022-04) Jordaan, Ronel; Terreblanche, Carine; Stellenbosch University. Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences. Dept. of Visual Arts.ENGLISH ABSTRACT: This is a practiced based enquiry that concerns itself with the interpretation of the ideas of alchemy through the creation of a range of contemporary jewellery pieces. This study consists of both practice and theory, of which this thesis is the theoretical component. The alchemical dream was centred around the transmutation of matter into gold, and this remained a central goal in a field of study that spans centuries. Alchemists researched the improvement of matter, and themselves, through formulating theories and applying this in practice. However, the term, alchemy, is difficult to define. Alchemy can be interpreted in several ways, such as pre chemistry, a philosophy of nature or an interpretation of analytical psychology. This depends on the perspective from which it is viewed, be it positivistic, postmodern or anthropological, making it a term that could be seen to have multiple meanings or interpretations. As the theoretical component of this research, this thesis investigates alchemy from a broad historical perspective. By researching the way information and knowledge could be interpreted through the artefacts that the artist creates, this thesis establishes practice-based research as the correct methodology for this inquiry within the field of contemporary jewellery in a postmodern setting. Through the examination of the work of Ruudt Peters, Inge Marais and Catherine Ferreira, contemporary jewellery is established as a platform from which the concepts of alchemy could be investigated. This study shows that the practice of contemporary jewellery can be utilised to visually communicate complex terms such as alchemy and its philosophies through the creation of a collection of jewellery.