On Hearing of His Illness
- Submitting institution
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University of the West of England, Bristol
- Unit of assessment
- 32 - Art and Design: History, Practice and Theory
- Output identifier
- 5940364
- Type
- T - Other
- DOI
-
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- Location
- Manchester School of Art
- Brief description of type
- Digital photography and analogue 'handmade' artwork
- Open access status
- -
- Month
- November
- Year
- 2014
- URL
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- Supplementary information
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- Request cross-referral to
- -
- Output has been delayed by COVID-19
- No
- COVID-19 affected output statement
- -
- Forensic science
- No
- Criminology
- No
- Interdisciplinary
- Yes
- Number of additional authors
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0
- Research group(s)
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-
- Proposed double-weighted
- No
- Reserve for an output with double weighting
- No
- Additional information
- Research Process
The project began during a research trip to India, when delivering photography workshops to textile artists. On Hearing of His Illness investigates narratives of domestic ritual, crossing western with eastern cultures through the development of photography and textile quilt process. The project contributes to the field of family photography, raising the questions: How does the synergy between photography and textiles push disciplinary boundaries in visual narrative? What new interpretations can women’s shared experience of everyday ritual bring to representations of the home?
By elevating the significance of daily ritual through creative responses to the public and private, the research explores cultural and art disciplinary difference. This advances image-storytelling through a dialogue between lens-related and applied arts, creating innovative approaches to visualising the domestic. The research re-evaluates marginalized ‘craft’ culture, offering imaginative insight into the social hierarchy of domestic ritual, presenting tales of the home on equal plane with other artforms, driving forgotten, quotidian craft processes into contemporary debates and conversations.
Research Insight
The resulting artefacts visualise everyday activities carried out predominantly by women. Innovative methodologies blend analogue ‘handmade’ techniques with contemporary digital photography, deviating subject principles of making through this synthesis of media, producing cross-cultural artwork presented in analogue and digital form. The synergy between disciplines presents a unique approach to family and still-life photography building on Blue Mary: Handwork for keeping the home by Gwen Van Embden, and Rosy Martin’s Close to Home. Informed by Mary Kelly’s multi-layered narratives that were both political and highly personal, the research combines political with the personal, the singular voice with shared conversations.
Research Dissemination
The research was disseminated through exhibitions, The Fire and the Rose(2014) and Tall Tales(2016), an international women artists exhibition, and through conference and public talks at SAAG Symposium(2014) and Tall Tales public engagement programme.
- Author contribution statement
- -
- Non-English
- No
- English abstract
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