Massey Documents by Type

Permanent URI for this communityhttps://mro.massey.ac.nz/handle/10179/294

Browse

Filters

1985 - 198912010 - 20182

Settings

Has files: YesSubject: search.filters.subject.Art and society

Search Results

Now showing 1 - 3 of 3
  • Thumbnail Image
    Item
    No limit : imagining the boundaries of autonomy in a post-Fordist colonial settler state : thesis submission for a Master of Fine Arts (Fine Arts), Massey University, Wellington, New Zealand
    (Massey University, 2018) Aoake, Hana Pera
    This exegesis will address the context of being a young, Māori artist living in a Post-Fordist colonial settler state. It will centre what these conditions what labour and the production of art looks like in Aotearoa, by analysing the ways in which our labour now fails to distinguish between ‘work’ and ‘occupation’. It will look at the way in which autonomy has been stripped through the tokenisation of a certain kind of indigenous practice that forces Māori artists into both performing indigeneity for Pākehā, as well as existing within individualistic imperial narrative that is toxic, colonising and alienating. I will discuss how this attempts to diminish the collaborative and intuitive approach to making art that is inherent within a larger history of contemporary Māori art by referring to senior wahine toa artists such as Shona Rapira-Davies. This research is explicitly centered around how the building of healthy, meaningful, ongoing working relationships with people I love has helped me redefine who my practice is for in spaces outside of the white cube. It will blend ideas garnered from both Western and indigenous frameworks, citing writing from theorists and artists including Hito Steyerl, Martha Rosler, Paolo Virno, Faith Wilson, Jenny Holzer and Natasha Matila-Smith (Ngāti Kahungunu, Ngāti Hine). It is hoped that in writing this exegesis I can articulate some adequate solutions to the current model for the production of art, which I believe is unsustainable and centered around ties to very colonial ideas of ‘community’ and of collaboration, particularly with the sharing of ideas and space.
  • Thumbnail Image
    Item
    Protesting sex slavery : the textile doll as activism : an exegesis presented in partial fulfilment of Master of Fine Arts, Massey University, Wellington
    (Massey University, 2017) White, Rosie
    Natural disasters, climate change, war and poverty have increased the vulnerability of migrants to modern slavery. Human traffickers prey upon post-disaster migrant populations who are vulnerable to promises of jobs and security. And among the most vulnerable are children, who are often given no choices. The incredibly sad yet lucrative side of sex trafficking is that a child or a young person’s body can be sold repeatedly for high profit with low overheads – often leading to a lifetime of severe trauma. This project involves the textile practice of cloth dolls. Dolls have rich cultural significance. They are used in children’s play, religious ceremonies, and are often dressed in national costumes. They are used in counselling to help victims deal with traumatic experiences. And as artist Eric Fischl (Fischl 2015) points out, they are a widespread genre in contemporary art, used by artists such as Hans Belmar, Cindy Sherman, Louise Bourgeois, and Morten Bartlett. And textiles themselves have been used as a form of protest from suffragette banners to the dolls of the Chilean Arpilleras. The cloth dolls that have been made as part of this project highlight and protest issues of sex trafficking. The dolls are darned and patched, just as the women and children, who are rescued by organisations that fight against modern slavery, need mending and restoration. They have a name tag on their ankles with a URL directing people to an agency that fights modern slavery and its consequences. They have been left in public places and displayed in a gallery setting.
  • Thumbnail Image
    Item
    The politics of art-making : a socialist-feminist critique : a thesis submitted to the Dept. of Sociology, Massey University in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts
    (Massey University, 1985) Cheyne, Christine
    In this thesis I wish to respond to the claim that there is a need to elaborate a proper and useful relationship between sociology and art; that is, to find out what, if any, limitations there are to a sociological analysis of art. To a large degree, sociological approaches to literature have provided insights useful and similar to the present focus of artistic production. There are some who claim that sociology cannot replace or substitute art criticism, that the aesthetic merit of any work is beyond the scope of sociological analysis. This is a position which I consider to be flawed. Even those who correctly criticise the reductionist tendencies of some sociological approaches nevertheless do not properly acknowledge the changing nature of what is considered to be of aesthetic quality. To ask the question 'What is art?' is, in fact, to ask about that which is considered to be art by society, or – more correctly – by certain of its key members. Consequently, a range of definitions of art and related practices are excluded. In this thesis, I focus on women's experience, in the light of the evidence of the way in which women's art has traditionally been ignored or devalued. The origins of aesthetics as a distinct discipline (the study of the nature of art) are seen to be linked to other social and historical developments; that is, the prior and accompanying constitution of art itself as a self-contained discourse and practice. Feminists, in particular, whose focus involves a concern with cultural production, have pointed to the way in which art is socially-constructed. They have sought to address the way in which the dominant discourse about art has contributed to the disadvantages and inferior position experienced by women in the arts and, indeed, to the wider societal oppression of women. Through the arts, male-defined representations of the world are valued, and the very notion of 'artist', as it has been commonly held, has reinforced women's secondary status. A socialist-feminist critique is outlined, in terms of its challenge to conventional art-critical practices. It recognises the constraints imposed on women by art critics in their gatekeeping capacity. The role of the state in the patronage of the arts is seen as another example of the political nature of cultural production, and the discourse within which the state's role is defined and practised is seen to be a political and ideological exercise. A socialist-feminist approach requires the validation of women's realities, in particular, and a general rejection of representations that distort or mystify social relations in the interests of hegemonic ideologies. In addition to the critique of the content of images, it seeks to transform the structural elements of cultural production. To generate a specific prescription, of a conclusive and exhaustive nature, for a genuinely democratic form of art practice is inappropriate. Instead, for the requirements of an authentic socialist-feminist critique, the political nature of cultural production and the changing conjunctural aspects of cultural production are to be fully acknowledged and incorporated.