Date on Master's Thesis/Doctoral Dissertation
5-2023
Document Type
Master's Thesis
Degree Name
M.F.A.
Department
Fine Arts
Degree Program
Studio Art and Design, MFA
Committee Chair
Calvert, Tiffany
Committee Member
Reitz, Christopher
Committee Member
Massey, Scott
Committee Member
Orton, Marybeth
Author's Keywords
performance; trauma; politically personal; radical vulnerability; witness and testimony
Abstract
This thesis document accompanies a body of work that is radically vulnerable, personally political, and emotionally complex. Through my work, I challenge myself and my audience to sit with discomfort and create an environment suitable to generate a nuanced appreciation of pain that approaches its acceptance through humor, confessionalism, and the subversion of tropes against themselves as an act of counter-mimicry. This document situates my work within art-historical context with a primary focus on performance art and applies insight from each artwork referenced to further analyze and defend my own work. Additionally, I use texts relating to Camp sensibility, binary terror, affect theory, and trauma studies to make arguments about my work that both recognize the discomfort I create and honor the potential for said discomfort to be productive and transformative.
Recommended Citation
DeWitt, Hannah, "Someone, stop her! The musical (the gallery show): The thesis document." (2023). Electronic Theses and Dissertations. Paper 4079.
Retrieved from https://ir.library.louisville.edu/etd/4079