Date of Award
Spring 5-31-2025
Document Type
Thesis
Degree Name
Master of Fine Arts (MFA)
Department
Jewelry and Metalsmithing
First Advisor
Tracy Steepy
Second Advisor
Sage Gerson
Third Advisor
Max Pratt
Abstract
Land breeds culture. It gives us the resources to thrive, and in that process we establish a relationship with its constituents. With a multitude of beings inhabiting the land, a complex web of relationships develop. Biology describes these relationships as food webs; the mass entanglement of organisms in a manner that each organism nourishes the other. These webs are not just mere scientific structures but rather an interpretation of existential connections that every organism in the world, humans included, are indebted to. Food webs are the first stepping stone in the formation of culture, as they account for the engagement between the inhabitants among a piece of land. very geography throughout the world has produced cultures as offspring. I grew up in the intersection of the so-called East and the West, coincidentally(or not) known for being very biologically and thus culturally diverse. Western thought likes to idealize the earlier civilizations in the area as the “progenitors of Western Society”, and focus on the domineering achievements of the region, such as the advent of mass-scale agriculture that enabled social hierarchy. A result of hegemonic abuse of food webs, this kind of misuse of ecological relations led to the shifting of power scales between the members occupying the land. Harmonious relationships have been present in the area, yet it wasn’t in the historical limelight of empires that it thrived. It persisted among those who relied on the land to survive. Although rulers of the land changed with years, the folk who worked the land remained in the same place. They became bearers of culture, carrying practices that were shaped by their ecology. We see the presence of this ecology in an array of fields, but to me of particular interest is jewelry.
Recommended Citation
Yüner, Ali Vedad, "Ecospiritual Entanglement" (2025). Masters Theses. 1377.
https://digitalcommons.risd.edu/masterstheses/1377
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Included in
Aquaculture and Fisheries Commons, Biodiversity Commons, Fine Arts Commons, Marine Biology Commons, Metal and Jewelry Arts Commons, Near Eastern Languages and Societies Commons, Other Languages, Societies, and Cultures Commons, Religious Thought, Theology and Philosophy of Religion Commons, Terrestrial and Aquatic Ecology Commons