2023 Art History Graduate Conference

Bio: Erin Galt is a Master of Arts candidate in contemporary art theory at the University of Ottawa. Her Ontario Graduate Scholarship funded research centres sexual violence in contemporary art. By examining rape as a ritual of power used to uphold cisheteropatriarchy, Erin aims to develop a robust vocabulary of visual imagery that either confronts, combats, or upholds rape culture. Moreover, Erin interrogates art and sexual violence through poststructuralist transfeminisms to reconsider the gaze as a praxis of power, the function of gendering authorship, and presence and absence as aesthetic mediations for trauma. She holds a B.A.(Hons) in art history and psychology.

Abstract: During the Covid-19 pandemic, there was an unprecedented rise in gender-based violence. As we approach the fortieth anniversary of the Ana Mendieta’s murder by then-husband artist Carl Andre, we can look back at the early implications of blood in her art. Many know of Mendieta’s use of blood as a symbol for rebirth and renewal. In this paper I focus on her earlier blood-based work where blood was used to signify absence, presence, and violence. Moreover, these earlier artworks demonstrate her investigation into the aesthetics of trauma through performance and film. In Untitled (Moffitt Building) (1973), blood signifies absence of body and the presence of violence. In Untitled (Rape Scene) (1973), blood is an intervention of the Abject, and in Untitled (Blood Signs #2/Body Tracks) (1974), blood signifies the indeterminacy of trauma. Instead of rebirth and renewal, Mendieta’s early blood-based artworks use affective imagery to confront gender-based violence and the scope of trauma. I explore this motif through Gilles Deleuze’s theory of Affect, Julia Kristeva’s notion of the Abject, and Jill Bennett’s identification of the aesthetics of ‘trauma art’. These three authors, each in their own way, advance a theory that enables the interrogation of trauma in art beyond representation. According to Deleuze, affects exist as active exchanges between materials and humans, demanding meaning regardless of the viewer’s intention. Kristeva’s theory of the Abject refers to the human reaction to a threatened breakdown in meaning caused by the loss of the distinction between self and other. Building upon Deleuze, Jill Bennett argues the affective power of the visual in art that draws from trauma, which is traditionally defined as being beyond both language and representation. Not only will this essay give a new perspective on Mendieta’s oeuvre but, through an analysis of her art, illuminate the theories of important writers.

Keywords: blood, body, trauma, gender-based violence, affect, absence, presence, power, Abject

Bio: Rojina Sabetiashraf is a second-year master’s student in the History of Art, Design, and Visual Culture program at the University of Alberta. Originally from Tehran, Iran, she completed her Bachelor of Fine Arts with a specialization in photography at the University of Tehran. Rojina’s research interests include the phenomenology of space and museum studies, as well as Iranian arts. With a background in fine arts and her current studies in art history, Rojina is particularly interested in combining her creative and analytical skills to explore questions related to the intersections of art, space, and culture.

Abstract: In this essay, I propose to examine how Covid-19 has affected museum visitors’ embodied experiences, including how the museum has responded to the pandemic by using online spaces and social media platforms in place of actual physical spaces. I will use a phenomenological and cultural studies approach to explore how the physical features of the space, the sensory qualities of the objects on display, and the movements and interactions of visitors themselves all influence embodied experiences in the museum with a particular focus on the Tehran Museum of Contemporary Arts in Tehran, Iran. A theoretical framework for comprehending how visitors interact with the museum environment and the objects on display, as well as how cultural and social factors shape visitors’ experiences and contribute to the production of meaning in the museum context, can be found in the phenomenological perspective of Maurice Merleau-Ponty and Mieke Bal’s theory on the act of looking. I also argue for the necessity of acknowledging various embodied forms in media space and revisiting the discussion of media and spatiality through the perspective of critical phenomenology. By challenging dominant narratives that frequently favour some forms of embodiment over others, this recognition can shed light on the complexity of the digital media space.

In general, a study of embodied experience in the Tehran Museum of Contemporary Arts, including the museum’s use of social media platforms and online museum spaces, can offer insight into the relationship between trauma and aesthetics as well as how visitors interact with and interpret the museum experience. Understanding the embodied experiences of visitors can add to ongoing discussions about the future of museum exhibitions and the role of digital technology in defining museum experiences.

Keywords: Embodied experience, Museums, Tehran Museum of Contemporary Arts,Phenomenology, Social media platforms, Online museum spaces

Bio: Yoobin Shin (she/her) is a MA student in the Art History Department at the University of Toronto. Her current research explores contemporary arts that visualizes intersectional identity and national discourse with multi-media. Prior to undertaking her master’s degree, she received her BA in Art History and Classical Studies, emphasis on Archaeology from the University of British Columbia in 2021. During her graduate and undergraduate time, Yoobin held several assistant positions, including an Educational Research Assistant at Greenwood, Blackwood in Ontario and a Gallery/Event assistant at the West Vancouver Community Arts Council. She continued to contribute herself in a valuable project of building community with her new role as a cultural programmer at the Arts Council of New Westminster in the summer of 2022. With her art historical background, Yoobin has been passionate about connecting community with arts in various ways and creating public platforms to discuss diverse contemporary issues.

Abstract: Can we have an activist movement through silence? This paper attempts to question the fundamental Western notion of activism through a recent memorial/art installation by a Vancouver-based Haida artist, Tamara Bell, at the steps of the Vancouver Art Gallery’s southern entrance. Installed in 2021 in response to the discovery of the remains of 215 Indigenous children on the grounds of the former residential school in BC, Canada, pairs of shoes were displayed, each to represent those missing children. Discursively engaging with Avery F. Gordon’s theorization of Ghostly Matters and Haunting, Bell’s installation is not simply regarded as a memorial and art installation; rather, it redefines itself as an activist movement through the silence without having any corporeal involvement of humans in the place. Through the quite haunting of the ghosts of children conjured up from the displayed shoes, it visualizes the history of invisibility and inequality placed Indigenous peoples under the structure of colonialism. At the same time, the author examines the strategic location of the installation, which breaks the silence of the place and unsettles spatial relations that are established between the former and current Vancouver Law courts, intervening in the history of the Canadian legal system and calling forth the reconciliation with the Indigenous Peoples. Bell’s installation stands still today in its place, becoming a monument — this shows a hope to continue to memorize the pain of children, not to be forgotten again.

Keywords: Indigenous Art, North America, Installation, Memorial, Haunting, Ghostly Matters, Colonialism, Activism, Silence, Resilience, Monumentalization, Spatial Relation.

Bio: VanStarkenburg was born in Pembroke, ON in 1974. She holds a BFA from the University of Ottawa (1997), an MFA (2018) and is an MA (2023) candidate in Contemporary Art Theory. She has been featured in magazines including Antidote Magazine and Art Reveal Magazine. She is the recipient of grants from The Canada Council for the Arts, The Ontario Arts Council, and The City of Ottawa, as well as other arts awards. She is a professor in both theory and studio courses and an arts writer. Her oeuvre is represented in public and private collections around the world. Her figurative work, which is anchored in narrative, incorporates themes such as girlhood, embodiment, and transformation.

Abstract: What might be the aim for contemporary artists for representing pain and its traumatic affects in their work today? One might venture to guess that the objective is to elicit, within the viewers, emotional responses, followed by deliberate actions toward the amelioration or eradication of the source of that suffering. Artists may wish to evoke empathy or compassion, consider the work to be resistance to adversity, or employ it in community building strategies. The inherent assumption within any of these, critically, is that the act of witnessing the pain of others has the capacity, if not as an automatic response, to evoke empathy from viewers. But we must ask if this is actually the case or does it, instead, cause yet more violence? Can concern for others be planted in the minds of art viewers? There is evidence that representing pain can transpose it from a description of experience to a de facto descriptor. Judith Butler has pointed this out in a number of her analyses, with the correlation between women and vulnerability being a prime example. This poses serious consequences for those that do experience various forms of violence and suffer the consequent trauma, such as women, Black or brown folks, or those with disabilities. Pain, or the predisposition to suffering, becomes understood as an inherent quality of inhabiting such a body, rather than a consequence of oppressive circumstances. In the following I will trace a brief history of the representation of pain in the Western tradition of visual art in order to draw out how “we” (a strategic essentialism: “we” are visual art viewers familiar with Western art historical precedents) may be indoctrinated to view and interpret the representations of others’ pain. I will support these arguments with examples of historical representations of pain and trauma, as well as contemporary examples.

Keywords: Visual art, Pain ,Trauma, Pain scripts, Empathy, Aesthetics of pain, “Othering” of suffering, Feminization of pain, Productive suffering

Bio: Aaron Waitson is a Wilfrid Laurier University student and soon-to-be graduate of the Tri-University MA History Program. His research specialization focuses on 19th and 20th c. American history, and in particular, popular culture and mass entertainment artifacts, the legacy of blackface and racial performance, and racial and national identity. His goal as an academic is to help catalyze an interest in history for others, reimagine historical writing in a way that is relevant and interesting for modern audiences, and better understand the current scope of the sociocultural American landscape.

Abstract: To better understand the cultural trajectory and race relations of the United States following the American Civil War, it is useful to explore the ways in which popular culture influenced the development of its nationhood and identity. In the nineteenth century, America underwent one of the most dramatic shifts in its national identity, due, in part, to the proliferation of blackface and minstrelsy as an entertainment form in mass culture. This paper looks at the impact of minstrel performances throughout the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, evaluating how they helped Americans understand themselves and the racialized Other, as well as the ways in which an emerging concept of national identity through racial performance and mimicry was defined.

Using gender and sexuality as the lens of this examination, this paper expands on the progress of previous scholars in the literature, assessing the extent to which these concepts intersect with notions of race and identity. In particular, it argues that the minstrel performance helped reinforce an emerging notion of a white supremacist ethnic and national identity through a socially-acceptable form of engagement with the racialized Other, using racial mimicry as a tool for social and cultural critique that would allow them to both play out taboo fantasies and see themselves as part of a greater community. This artifact of popular culture offers a unique opportunity to investigate the legacy of mass racialized entertainment, to better comprehend its historical context and cultural weight, the factors that influenced its popularization, and its aftermath.

Keywords: U.S. History, Popular Culture, Blackface, Race, Identity, Performance, Gender, Sexuality, Nationhood

Bio: Regatu Asefa is a completing her MA in Art and Architectural History as well as a Graduate Diploma in Curatorial Studies at Carleton University. Her research interests include Islamic architectural spaces and the related social and multisensory experiences. Her thesis explores eighteenth-century Ottoman fountains and the ways in which European travellers conveyed these multisensory experiences in travelogues. Since September 2022, she has been interning at the Ottawa Art Gallery on an upcoming show, 83 ‘Til Infinity: 40 Years of Hip-Hop in the Ottawa-Gatineau Region. She is excited to carry her research interests of multisensory and architectural spaces into a career in curating.

Abstract:In 1961, amidst the Algerian War of Independence, famed art critic and founder of the Nouveau Réalistes, Pierre Restany, wrote the introduction panel for the exhibition, La France déchirée. In it, he compared the décollage artworks that featured posters referencing the war to the dirty, menstrual-stained laundry of a well-bred woman. His text represents French disavowal of history and the mid-century cultural cleansing. Following the end of the Second World War, France’s reconstruction period demanded cleanliness, intent on ridding herself of the decay, stains, and complicity of the Occupation. Restany’s introduction, on display while the country was actively engaged in the Algerian War of Independence, connects the cultural cleanse of post-WWII and 1960s French colonialism. Through this cultural cleansing, French morality could be restored. However, Jean Fautrier’s 1943 La Juive and Niki de Saint Phalle’s 1961 Grand Tir – Séance de la Galerie J complicate the French virtue Restany’s writing espouses. These works challenge the image of a pure and virtuous France by emphasizing female blood imagery and therefore exposing the violence of the country’s politics throughout the twentieth century. Through female blood imagery including death, decay, wounds, and blood, these two pieces challenge the constructed image of a virtuous and clean France and expose the country’s virtue as a falsehood. The female blood imagery in these works emphasizes the moral failings and dirty history (or ‘laundry,’ as Restany wrote) of the nation, rejecting the cleansed national image France sought for herself.

Keywords: France, Blood, Women, Jean Fautrier, Niki de Saint-Phalle, Disavowal

Bio: Olivia Musselwhite is a second year Masters’ Student in the Art and Architectural History program at Carleton University. Her research interests include museum studies and contemporary art.

Abstract: Beadwork is often categorized as craft in the Western tradition, and relegated to glass cases, giving the false impression that it is an art tradition associated with the past. Beading is not frozen in time, but rather, as Lana Ray articulates, it is an active artistic practice that continues to serve as a powerful form of visual storytelling in Indigenous communities. Sherry Farrell Racette expands this idea, stating that beadwork can then be viewed as a form of medicine, with its connections to storytelling, thinking, mourning, healing, and the passing of memory. Adding to this discourse, Stephanie Anderson explains that there is a transformative power in traditional materials, enabling them to confront trauma and hidden histories, while affirming the ongoing vitality and sovereignty of Indigenous communities.

The concept of time is intertwined with beading in its laborious process and in its abilities as a medium to bring traditional Indigenous methods into present discussions. In Ruth Cuthand’s work, Don’t Breathe, Don’t Drink (2016), she beads the three-dimensional forms of viruses commonly found in contaminated drinking water. The colourful beads are suspended in drinking glasses and baby bottles, placed on top of a tarp-covered table. The beadwork provides opportunities for activism and healing, encouraging conversations about drinking water crises in Indigenous communities that continue in Canada today. Beading rejects notions of Indigenous peoples as being a part of the past, and instead propels Indigenous discourse into the present and into the future.

Key Words: Indigenous Art, Beadwork, Temporality, Storytelling, Healing.