Date of Award

Spring 5-3-2019

Author's School

Sam Fox School of Design and Visual Arts

Author's Program

Art

Degree Name

Bachelor of Fine Arts (BFA)

Restricted/Unrestricted

Unrestricted

Abstract

Though we live only in the present, our every experience will eventually fade into the depths of memory. Deconstructing the Present || (Re)constructing the Past introduces my artist practice on a broad level, one that is preoccupied by the difference between present experience and its memory, as well as the ways we weave memory into the physical environments of architecture and material objects. This thesisestablishes a specific signal memory for the body of work, the memory of a structure that, for a brief time, was a sanctuary for myself and many others. The paper then follows the arc of artistic response to that memory as I worked across discipline to reinvigorate the memory with new life. I situate my work among scholarship which draws connections between nostalgia and the image of the home, the relationship between the home and memory, and the subjectivity of memory itself. I contextualize my own creative practice with contemporary artists working within similar conceptual bounds. The work presented in this thesis visualizes the circularity of remembering and the subjectivity of memory, from a singular signal memory to works that continue the life cycle from past to present. Ultimately, I argue that memory is an act of construction as much as it is an act of reconstruction, and that we may not only discover meaning through acts of remembering, but also that we may create meaning.

Mentor/Primary Advisor

Lisa Bulawsky

Share

COinS