Thesis
There's no place
University of Iowa
Master of Fine Arts (MFA), University of Iowa
Spring 2024
DOI: 10.25820/etd.007428
Abstract
The memories and histories associated with discarded household objects are rebuilt as sculptures that discuss consumer culture, unsustainable materialism, arts accessibility in participatory events, queer world-building, and homemaking through ethical collections and non-archival installations. Raised in a conservative and heteronormative Midwestern home, art became an outlet to explore my own queer identity, gender outside of patriarchal ideals, and the purpose of being an artist as a necessary political critique. I became enamored with structural techniques of welding, woodworking, and metal casting initially because of the similarity to the manual labor associated with my upbringing of spending long hours helping my father after school, my parents’ blue-collar work, and American Midwestern values of hard work and perseverance as humble competency.
While returning to Wisconsin after installing one of my sculptures in the spring of 2019, I received a Traumatic Brain Injury from a 13 lb. chunk of concrete. The ordeal necessitated six months of recovery, memory building exercises, and a new eyesight prescription. Thankfully, I was physically fine, but the months of rehabilitation brought on feelings of loneliness and grief over lost memories and a sense of self.
Informed by my recovery, my interactive and immersive sculptural installations include Scollages (sculpture + collage) and their shadows, cast metal sculptures of deteriorated fabric comforts, surreal false spaces, double-exposed cyanotype prints of refashioned architecture, distorted home decor, video projection, and stacked assemblages of furniture that call attention to the ephemeral and visceral qualities of memory, challenge ideas of social class systems, the inherent purpose of objects, and the irreverence for labor and everyday commodities. Personal experience and my own memories are the foundation for creating community-engaged events as shared experiences of art outside of current capitalist social structures. Deconstructed household goods are rebuilt in site-specific installations to reclaim femme-engendered objects and societally gate-kept roles. The reconstructed work takes on imagined function and purpose in uncanny spaces, creating embodied experiences within each installation. The haunting differences yet familiar closeness of the staged installation sets become potential sites for queer homemaking and storytelling as world-building beyond American capitalistic systems of societal value.
Details
- Title: Subtitle
- There's no place
- Creators
- Jamie Weinfurter
- Contributors
- Daniel Miller (Advisor)Isabel Barbuzza (Committee Member)Heather Parrish (Committee Member)T.J. Dedeaux-Norris (Committee Member)Sydney Ewerth (Committee Member)
- Resource Type
- Thesis
- Degree Awarded
- Master of Fine Arts (MFA), University of Iowa
- Degree in
- Art
- Date degree season
- Spring 2024
- Publisher
- University of Iowa
- DOI
- 10.25820/etd.007428
- Number of pages
- xi, 58 pages
- Copyright
- Copyright 2024 Jamie Weinfurter
- Language
- English
- Date submitted
- 04/22/2024
- Description illustrations
- illustrations, facsimiles
- Description bibliographic
- Includes bibliographical references (page 58).
- Public Abstract (ETD)
- The memories and histories associated with discarded household objects are reconstructed as sculptures that discuss consumer culture, unsustainable materialism, arts accessibility in participatory events, queer world-building, and homemaking through ethical collections and non-archival installations. This thesis discusses my individual growth as an artist over the past three years while obtaining my MA and MFA degrees from the University of Iowa, as well as my purpose as an artist creating sculptural installations based on my recovery and reconciliation from a Traumatic Brain Injury in 2019. The near-death experience has shaped my worldview to advocate for systems of mutual aid, an overall change in American, individualistic social structures, a queer future of inclusive potential, and the importance of honoring “the little things” in life. My interactive and immersive sculptural installations call attention to the ephemeral and visceral qualities of memory and challenge ideas of social class systems, the inherent purpose of objects, and the irreverence for labor and everyday commodities. Personal experience, my loss of memories, and unwanted household are rebuilt in site-specific installations as embodied experiences reclaiming femme-engendered objects, societally gate-kept roles, and heteronormative domesticity. The uncanny differences yet familiar closeness of the reconstructed sculptures become potential sites for queer homemaking and storytelling as world-building beyond American capitalistic systems of societal value.
- Academic Unit
- School of Art, Art History, and Design
- Record Identifier
- 9984647555702771
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