Painting as an imaginative re-narrativizing tool (Down on the Farm 2)
- Submitting institution
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Nottingham Trent University
- Unit of assessment
- 32 - Art and Design: History, Practice and Theory
- Output identifier
- 39 - 951752
- Type
- T - Other
- DOI
-
-
- Location
- -
- Brief description of type
- N/A
- Open access status
- Out of scope for open access requirements
- Month
- October
- Year
- 2017
- URL
-
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- Supplementary information
-
-
- Request cross-referral to
- -
- Output has been delayed by COVID-19
- No
- COVID-19 affected output statement
- -
- Forensic science
- No
- Criminology
- No
- Interdisciplinary
- No
- Number of additional authors
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0
- Research group(s)
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A - Artistic Research Centre
- Proposed double-weighted
- Yes
- Double-weighted statement
- This complex body of work communicates through a reimaging of narrative and visual representations produced in the form of 1227 paintings. They explore, analyse and negotiate conflict, memories, erasure and belonging. Five years of field work in the Solovki archipelago involved extensive interviews and filming to record both official and non-official accounts of Soviet histories. Higgin’s experience of extensive field work in Soviet bloc countries and engagement with regional artists/writers/filmmakers through the collection and analysis of a large body of material has allowed the production of culturally resonant artworks that have responded to a diverse set of source materials.
- Reserve for an output with double weighting
- No
- Additional information
- This enquiry – comprising an extensive body of work in the form of 1227 paintings – adopts painting as a method to address how the ‘image’ and the act of ‘making images’ combined with ‘where the image performs’ can offer ways to question, negotiate, communicate or describe moments of erasure or remembering and belonging.
DOTF2 uses as a case study the Solovki archipelago in north Russia, which was the founding Russian Orthodox monastery and also Stalin’s ‘mother’ of Russian gulags, exploring subsequent inter-related narratives embedded in the legacy of particular Soviet histories. Using painting as an imaginative re-narrativizing tool, DOTF2 contests the indexical nature of much documentary film and photography, proposing multiple and polyphonic perspectives including both official and unofficial narrative voices. Within DOTF2 painting is used affectively to isolate, amplify, suspend and montage ‘culturally resonant’ images drawn from diverse source material – e.g. photographic reproductions, film stills, drawings, testimony. This contests orthodox official representations (of the archive, of mediatised narratives) and creates openings for re-sensitised engagement and discussion.
Addressing problematics of ethics and representation therein - DOTF2 resonates with the work of artist Grigaliunas, K, filmmakers Goldovskaya, M and Goddard, JL and writers Alexsevich, S and Didi-Huberman, G.
The visual language of DOTF2 – specifically how the work performs - has been tested and developed through an iterative approach to exhibition – e.g. Bloc Projects, Sheffield (2017), Lithuanian National Museum of Art, Kaunas (2018), Skopje City Museum, Macedonia (2018) Mikulov City Museum, Czech Republic (2018)– alongside numerous discursive events.
The capacity of DOTF2 for expanding and enhancing discussion around the representation of narrative and conflict is evidenced through its inclusion in national collections e.g. Czech Republic State Collection and Lithuanian National Museum of Art, Kaunas, (acquired 2018), state television, press reviews and education initiatives e.g. the Baltic Road.
- Author contribution statement
- -
- Non-English
- No
- English abstract
- -