abstract for thesis report

I delivered a thesis report a couple of weeks ago and now that I've absorbed the feedback, I thought it was a good idea to put it online. This report will form the basis for the plan of the overall thesis. 

MIND THE GAP: A spatial enquiry into social and political space

This research project will re-examine the relationship between viewer and art object with regard to the social construction of space in a political context. It will focus on the creation of spaces and objects within a gallery environment that elicit a physical and psychological response. The intent is to investigate and question familiar notions of how the art object functions in relation to a social construction of space.

My work for this project references the art of the late-modernist period and utilizes a Minimal aesthetic, characterized by a human scale, non-representational objects and monochromatic surfaces. However the self-constructed, homebuilder nature of these works sets the project’s aesthetic apart from that of the Minimalist’s. The architectural aspect of this work also aims to create an environment that makes the viewer more aware of the space they inhabit.

Primary to my understanding of the construction of social space has been a reading of the philosopher Henri Lefebvre; his triad of perceived - conceived - lived spaces has formed the main context for my research into spatial experience. Geographer Doreen Massey’s writing on the interrelation between space and the political has also been integral as a new way of understanding the link between space, time, human movement and the construction of spatial relations.

My proposition is that the combination of Lefebvre’s three spatial arenas allows the contemporary artist to address known spatial conventions and so contribute to what the French political philosopher Jacques Rancière calls ‘the distribution of the sensible’. 

Via a cross-disciplinary, at times interactive approach my project questions the known conventions of social space and examines the ‘implicit laws’ of the gallery as a mediated arena for the construction of an experimental spatial practice. In activating this exchange, this investigation allows the viewer a ‘way in’ to an otherwise separate and privileged area articulated by and through its own customs and language.