Knot/Knotting Practice in Craft and Space

Knot/knotting Practice in Craft and Space is a three part research-creation project that used a study of knotting techniques to locate craft in an expanded field of spatial practice. The first part consisted of practical, studio based exercises in which I worked with various natural and synthetic fibres to learn common knotting techniques. The second part was an art historical study that combined craft and architecture history with critical theory related to the social production of space. The third part was an exhibition of drawing and knotted objects titled Opening Closures. This document unifies the lines inquiry that define my project. The first chapter presents the art historical justification for knotting to be understood as a spatial practice. Nineteenth-century German architect and theorist Gottfried Semper’s idea that architectural form is derived from four basic material practices allies craft and architecture in my project and is the point of departure from which I make my argument. In the second chapter, to consider the methodological concerns of research-creation as a form of knowledge production and dissemination, I adopt the format of an instruction manual to conduct an analysis of knot types and to provide instructions for the production of several common knots. In the third chapter, I address the formal and conceptual underpinnings of each artwork presented in my exhibition. I conclude with a proposal for an expanded field of spatial practice by adapting art critic and theorist Rosalind Krauss’s well-known framework for assessing sculpture in 1960s.

CERAMICS IN BRITAIN (1840-90): MEANINGS AND METAPHORS

The intention of this thesis, “Ceramics in Britain (1840–90): Meanings and Metaphors” is to present new approaches for interpreting ceramics in nineteenth-century Britain by situating, problematizing, and contextualizing pottery and porcelain in the popular debates of the day within the methodologies of material culture, design, cultural and art histories. I ask how did ceramics—portable, functional, and often decorative objects—contribute to shaping modes of experiences? Crockery, tableware and blue-white-porcelain, admittedly largely mediated in texts and paintings, are at the centre of this research to examine how they imposed symbolism and influenced the engagement of their subjects beyond their intended meanings and functions. This thesis tracks a common rhetoric shared by writers and artists across genres and understood by readers and viewers: crockery in the cupboard, on the mantel, the table or the floor were popular motifs exemplifying class, gender, character, etiquette, and taste. This thesis also seeks to map ceramics’ relations with other objects and people depicted. Their meanings and metaphors changed, depending on their exchange with other objects in the room and who uses them. The conventions of representing ceramics dictated a particular grammar that writers and artists used, critiqued, discarded or personalized. The examination of ceramics mediated in text and image especially in comparison with extant objects invites a deeper probing of both material culture and artistic practice, which helps to situate the agency of the ceramic objects themselves. Also this thesis, in attempt to explore new methodological approaches for ceramic studies, examines the social life of the mid-Victorian relief-moulded “Minster” Jug in the Gardiner Museum in Toronto. The product originating in Staffordshire in 1843 and exported to the colonies holds significance due to its multiple life histories. Viewing the “Minster” through the lenses of curator, collector, consumer, and critic its layered lives unfold to reveal the protocols of museum praxis as well as important aspects of mid-nineteenth-century British society related to design reform, gender, imperialism and consumption patterns. This thesis contends that the British experienced ceramics in sometimes unexpected ways, unrelated to their original purpose, such as tools of violence or containers of solace, and transformative fantasy.

Stitching Settler Identities: Canadian Quilts and Their Makers, 1800-1880

Stitching Settler Identities: Canadian Quilts and their Makers, 1800-1880 explores the making, use, and circulation of handmade settler quilts as representation of nineteenth-century women’s social, cultural and economic histories in Canada. An important part of Canadian settlement history is the making and use of handmade quilts in the settler homestead. Handmade coverlets that provided both physical and emotional warmth in the home were a measure of a settler-woman’s careful management of resources and a display of her innovation and creativity. Few settler women recorded their daily experiences; however, most women could sew and quilts offered a method of expression that allowed them to reflect and portray their identities. Thus far, the few studies of quilts have been limited to exhibition catalogues or research that considers a quilt’s aesthetics or its historic significance. While several scholars have called for a reclassification of textile production and needle arts to advance the way in which settler women were viewed as social beings – creating, producing, communicating, and circulating cultural values, most studies on quilts have overlooked a coverlet’s materiality. This study aims to expand the research on quilts as material culture within the context of art history by also considering a quilt’s materiality and when possible, its maker's biography.

Cultural Politics of Resilience in Kingston, Jamaica

Recently, resilience has become a catchall solution for some of the world’s most pressing ecological, economic and social problems. This dissertation analyzes the cultural politics of resilience in Kingston, Jamaica by examining them through their purported universal principles of adaptation and flexibility. On the one hand, mainstream development regimes conceptualize resilience as a necessary and positive attribute of economies, societies and cultures if we are to survive any number of disasters or disturbances. Therefore, in Jamaican cultural and development policy resilience is championed as both a means and an end of development. On the other hand, critics of resilience see the new rollout of resilience projects as deepening neoliberalism, capitalism and new forms of governmentality because resilience projects provide the terrain for new forms of securitization and surveillance practices. These scholars argue that resilience often forecloses the possibilities to resist that which threatens us. However, rather than dismissing resilience as solely a sign of domination and governmentality, this dissertation argues that resilience must be understood as much more ambiguous and complex, rather than within binaries such as subversion vs. neoliberal and resistance vs. resilience. Overly simplistic dualities of this nature have been the dominant approach in the scholarship thus far. This dissertation provides a close analysis of resilience in both multilateral and Jamaican government policy documents, while exploring the historical and contemporary production of resilience in the lives of marginalized populations. Through three sites within Kingston, Jamaica—namely dancehall and street dances, WMW-Jamaica and the activist platform SO((U))L HQ—this dissertation demonstrates that “resilience” is best understood as an ambiguous site of power negotiations, social reproduction and survival in Jamaica today. It is often precisely this ambiguous power of ordinary resilience that is capitalized on and exploited to the detriment of vulnerable groups. At once demonstrating creative negotiation and reproduction of colonial capitalist social relations within the realms of NGO, activist work and cultural production, this dissertation demonstrates the complexity of resilience. Ultimately, this dissertation draws attention to the importance of studying spaces of cultural production in order to understand the power and limits of contemporary policy discourses and political economy. 

Governing Big Data: The Political Economy of Power, Knowledge and Consumer Finance in the Digital Age

This dissertation offers a critical international political economy (IPE) analysis of the ways in which consumer information has been governed throughout the formal history of consumer finance (1840 – present). Drawing primarily on the United States, this project problematizes the notion of consumer financial big data as a ‘new era’ by tracing its roots historically from late nineteenth century through to the present. Using a qualitative case study approach, this project applies a unique theoretical framework to three instances of governance in consumer credit big data. Throughout, the historically specific means used to govern consumer credit data are rooted in dominant ideas, institutions and material factors.