Date of Award

Spring 6-2-2018

Document Type

Thesis

Degree Name

Master of Fine Arts (MFA)

Department

Graphic Design

First Advisor

Bethany Johns

Second Advisor

Paul Soulellis

Third Advisor

Ryan Waller

Abstract

I see myself as a literary curator — I collect and sequence texts and images, both digital and analog, to reveal, connect, and construct narratives, resulting in shifting meanings and significances. Inhabiting this curatorial ethos, I investigate hidden subtexts, locating personal and collective relations to the margins and files marked “miscellany.” Working in books and installations, I engage with the inherited meanings of visual languages (form, typography, color, material, format) to open up well-worn narratives and craft new interpretations.

Tiny Diasporas is a primer to a design practice that borrows the form of an abecedarius, an alphabetical wordlist for learning the basics of reading and writing. The title comes from a quote by the artist-gatherer Danh Vo, who describes his work as “the tiny diasporas that make up a person’s life.” In this thesis, through projects and interviews, I outline a practice that addresses broad political themes refracted through personal narratives. Where artists like Danh Vo use the museum space as a site for repositioning historical objects to create new meanings, I use the book form as a space for curatorial intervention. A site where interpretation (meaning) is mediated by the space between image and text and through sequence, the book allows me to address my family’s displacement in the context of a militarized state, the traces created by entropy in the everyday and by museum spaces, and historiography as a critical form of creative production.

Share

COinS
 
 

To view the content in your browser, please download Adobe Reader or, alternately,
you may Download the file to your hard drive.

NOTE: The latest versions of Adobe Reader do not support viewing PDF files within Firefox on Mac OS and if you are using a modern (Intel) Mac, there is no official plugin for viewing PDF files within the browser window.