title: Queer Space

contributor: Cutler, Randy Lee (Randy Lee Cutler) (thesis advisor)

subject:
Queer theory
Queer studies
Visibility
Identity
Site-specific art

abstract:
LGBTQ+
Activism
Queer history
Queer art
Uninvited art


title: Frame Piece State Repeat: Translating a Sense of Self Through Performative Actions With Others

type: Collection Text thesis

subject:
Assemblage (Art)
Tacit knowledge
Knowledge
Performance
Repetition (Aesthetics)


title: Re-Imagining Return to the Marshes

type: Text thesis

contributor: Abdul Hadi, Tamara (Tamara Abdul Hadi) (author)

contributor: Emily Carr University of Art and Design Graduate Studies (Degree granting institution)

contributor: Hilder, Jamie (Jamie Hilder) (thesis advisor)

format:
23 p.
electronic

rights: This thesis support image is available to view and copy for research and educational purposes only, provided that it is not altered in any way and is properly acknowledged, including citing the author(s), title and full bibliographic details.

subject:
Decolonization
Decolonization--Iraq
Photography
Colonial histories

abstract: To decolonize photographic histories is to rethink the fundamental aspects of visual documentation, from approach to intention, and the power dynamics therein. In exploring both historic and contemporary visual representations of the SWANA region—including through photographic archives from Iraq by locals and visitors—I examine the colonial gaze in these archives by bringing them into conversation with my own work. I explore how histories can be colonized even in imagination. I do this by reflecting on the reclamation of historical narratives by photographers and artists, and engaging in an approach to decolonizing images that centres community action and collective participation, using photographic histories in the present. How might colonized histories be re-framed and how can we imagine new ways of examining those histories through photography?

abstract: SWANA

abstract: Iraq

abstract: Iraqi Marshlands

abstract: Marshes

abstract: Representation


title: Joyful Making in Perilous Times

subject:
Abject art
Communities
Crafts & decorating
Textile art
Feminism
Installations (Art)
Handicraft

abstract: What may seem like a fuzzy retreat from devastating personal, local, and global realities is in fact a tactile, humane action to seek alternatives. This thesis explores object-making in a world of hazardous objects and conditions, intertwining the gathering of found materials, rote-making and community engagement. The supporting document is presented as a matrix extending across five case studies of projects over the course of one calendar year. It is set in a journalistic format to engage a wide range of readers. Each project picks up threads of ideas and weaves them through information sources from both inside and outside the privileged space of the art institution, in loosely woven support of a complicating cultural practice.


title: Mediating Architecture, Spatial Perception & Memory Through Simulation and Digital Fabrication

subject:
Technology
Architecture
Memory
Painting
Installations (Art)
Architecture, Postmodern
Simulation

abstract: This thesis outlines an exploration of the relationship between memory and architecture through the lens of technology. I discuss how memory and knowledge have become outsourced into computers and devices which can change our perception of reality, in particular the architectural spaces we inhabit. The research explores the following questions to a variety of degrees: What is the relationship between space, memory and technology? What are the deeper impacts of simulations on our understanding of space? How can a digital to analog process shed new light on the way digital culture has changed our perception of space? Working from the perspective of my background in architecture, I describe my foundational understanding of the built environment and its’ ability to reflect meaning beyond its functionality and communicate the desires of others. This is related through an anecdotal architectural history of late modern architecture pertaining to the region where I spent the formitive part of my life. I introduce the philosophical concept of Metamodernism and demonstrate how it applies to our understanding of the built environment and how it explains some of the phenomena I encountered in my architectural practice, specifically the idea of depth and authenticity as it relates to our perception of space. I outline the relationship between space and memory with references to Gaston Bachelard and Rebecca Solnitt and discuss how my experience in designing for late life has led to a new understanding of the perception of space and how this is a flexible concept that changes throughout our lives. The methodology I have developed for this research is presented in a discussion about the Digital to Analog process and how that process leads to the production of new knowledge and insights about materials. I demonstrate the process of reconstructing memories of architectural spaces using computer modelling and then the mediation of those models into analog form. The methodology shows how mediation is used to emphasize the gap or fault in memory that occurs over time, and how the medium alters the original. Key concepts that emerged in this research are situated in the theoretical works of architectural scholar Anthony Vidler, new media scholar Timotheas Vermeulen and philosopher Jean Baudrillard. Further contextualizing of the work is found in a comparative discussion about the work of contemporary artists Sabrina Ratte, Jon Rafman and Thomas Demand. The body of work that is supported by this thesis document investigates a range of subjects that, when combined together reflect a larger societal phenomena of Metamodernism and the concurrent idea of ‘creation of depth as a performative act’. The concepts and methodologies examined throughout include the manifestation of memory through digital fabrication, elements of postmodern architecture and the formal language of architectural space, and the attempt to portray the depth of memory but inhibiting that process by imposing mediation strategies.


title: Tactile Storytelling Using a Transmedia Approach

subject: Jacquard weaving--Storytelling--Tapestry

abstract: This project aims to gain an understanding of storytelling using a transmedia approach. Throughout the research, I explored how knowledge is generated using a multi-stage process that moves from poetry writing to tapestry weaving, and then to audio recording. My primary objective has been to use a transmedia approach, considering how different media formats interact, to open up and explore how my personal story is interpreted between myself and the audience. By using a transmedia approach, this research project allows me to create an immersive sensory experience for the audience in a way that provides an example for future design research. By designing, encoding, and studying of artifacts created using the TC-2 Digital Jacquard Loom, this research aims to investigate how woven tapestry can help people visualize and experience emotion. As a result of this research, I have created the media formats of tapestry, poetry and audio using a creative transmedia storytelling process, as well as “Hands-on weaving” workshops to provide opportunities for everyone from non-designers to experienced weavers to conduct personal material exploration. What I have found is that it is possible for emotions to be elicited through weaving by employing a transmedia approach causing a synergistic understanding between the storyteller and audience.


title: The Painted Story of The Meat People

subject:
Figurative painting
Painting
Mythology
Painting, Abstract

abstract: This thesis documents focuses on painting and mythology and how they investigate thematic questions regarding consciousness and existence. The study investigates how world building and the creation of fictional characters through the medium of paint can explore thoughts on mortality and impermanence. This paper examines painting’s materiality and process, while reflecting on contemporary painting as well as art history and its precedents. This dissertations goal is to explore the authors relationship with mortality, impermanence and what it means to live and have a human experience.


title: Daydreams

subject:
Video art
Daydreaming
Photography
Poetry
Installations (Art)
Projection art

abstract: This paper lays out the thinking process and decisions taken in an artistic methodology and an emerging thesis project. Here, imagination, reflection and projection are interpreted both as methods in looking and as inner spaces; they are ways to see and ways to be, and the main topic of this research. States of mind and of vision are explored through observation and introspection. Walking, transit and travel are ways employed to allow a slowness in looking and an opportunity to daydream. These experiences in space and time are recorded through methods of writing, photography and videography. I build installations in which this translation from moment to media is displayed to create an immersion for the viewer to be in. In the multimedia installations, the gallery becomes a space in which to reflect and project: it too allows a slowness in looking, thinking and noticing.


title: Pressing Matter

subject: Printmaking Monotype Prints--Technique

abstract: This thesis document is divided into eight chapters, each one representative of a step and/or necessary component within traditional printmaking processes. Serving as both didactic terms and metaphoric interpretations, the steps are essential parts of my explorative and reactionary print process, methodically formed through intuition and response. Shedding light on the under workings of my research based practice, influences, and inspirations, each section adopts the traditional vocabulary of print as a strategy to validate the historically under-appreciated single impression (monotype) print and its ability to decelerate viewership. Using the method of “Registration”, I situate my practice in correlation to the land on which I work and live. My “First impressions” on the unique print are aligned with its infinitely distinctive and mysterious characteristics, which support the formulation of the core questions that drive my creative process. The most vital element of my practice, “Pressure”, is an entry point to write more specifically about the (physical) work, which shifts from the outside world to my body, and to the printing press. Chance is unavoidable: It is through “The Reveal” that the diverse potentialities of mediums and materials, as well as the occasionally unexpected variations in the process, display their meaningful impact. “The Proof” is the unique print in all its various states and inclusivity. Inevitably, there are many “Future Editions” to come. Their dissemination and display are dependent on the cyclical elements that enkindle their creation: when one series of work ends, new understandings, gestures and formations unearth, informing the next state. Lastly, the mirroring that occurs when a plate is printed and is revealed in reverse, acts as a reflection. While not knowing exactly how events and decisions during the making process will eventuate, the resolution comes to light by rumination.


title: Honouring Ghosts & The Nature of Grief: Artmaking as Transfiguration

subject:
Sculpture
Phenomenology and art
Grief
Walking
Nature
Ecology

abstract: This thesis project is rooted in relationships─ the deep bonds which we share with one another, with our more-than-human kin, and our relationship with the abundant animate life that exists in the natural world. After losing several loved ones to cancer in a short time I became drawn to the interplay of grief and wounded ecology. This led to a methodological framework for making which involves thinking with grief and thinking with and through nature. Through curious and embodied engagement with the natural world, my aim is to create a material vernacular for grief using the formal and metaphoric language of nature. The questions I am researching through my thesis work are: How is the transformational nature of grief enacted through the intuitive, embodied, material, and metaphoric processes of making? How can the absence created by death be materially and conceptually made present through space and form? The research takes a phenomenological approach through walking, observing, sensing, and collecting organic ephemera in the natural environment. This sensorial experience includes an openness to the spectral─ making space to listen and commune with ghosts while in nature and in the studio. My embodied experiences in the natural world and the organic matter I’ve collected are then translated through various material investigations in the studio including relief printing, repetitive layering to build up forms, generating 3D sculptures, and finally, creating large scale immersive installations. This thesis has elucidated how death can be a type of refugia in both life and artmaking ─ allowing us to draw from the compost of loss and chaos to re-order and reanimate them through altered forms. The final artworks have been propelled by asking: What material processes enact regeneration─ extracting a quality from the debris of our losses to make new with? The thesis project explores what it looks like to actively grieve, to go on living with death. It enacts the hopeful potentiality in the simultaneous work of mourning while making new.


subject:
Installations (Art)
Cross-culture studies
Printmaking
Paper work

abstract: Ghosts of the Home: Unfolded Pasts & Traces of the Old Country is a project that encompasses material and conceptual research regarding the realities of people with cross-cultural identities. The core of this thesis work relies on my own Polish-Canadian identity, the material exploration of paper through printmaking, the Polish folk art called wycinanki and installation. Nostalgia is present in the work as I reference my early childhood, which is a time when I felt the strongest connection to my Polish heritage and before I began to assimilate into Canadian culture. It is through artmaking that I bridge the gap between my identities. The tactility of the repetitive actions of printmaking and paper cutting allows for my mind to remember the place of childhood.


subject:
Art and science
Drawing
Perception
Neural stimulation

abstract: Learning to See the Unknown: Drawing Out the Strange is a thesis project that takes a speculative approach to reflecting on subjective experiences of mental imagery, perception, and other neural phenomena. Entangled with ways of understanding from scientific knowledge practices within neuroscience the work engages with histories of scientific renderings that visualize the invisible. Examinations of neuroculture reveal ongoing interconnections between art and neuroscience. Scientific imaging processes of the brain render visible invisible phenomena, such as thought and consciousness. Artistic interplay with this type of imaging exposes ambivalent possibilities in what it means to see and think, challenging the scientific understanding of mind and perception. In my studio practice I begin to develop a methodology that ‘excavates’ my subjective neural experiences and interconnects the experience with emerging theories of neuroscience phenomena. Starting with my own experience of the strangeness of neural phenomena and utilizing a process of making that corresponds with the performance of material, I create a series of drawings that resist making the strange familiar. How can I visualize the unknown but maintain a strangeness, an ambiguity, that resists the apprehension of knowability? This thesis examines several works Untitled Light Space, Untitled Darkness, and Untitled Mental Specimen Space and engages with works from other artists and theories surrounding light, perception, neuroscience and the relationship of objectivity and subjectivity in art and science. The thesis includes interludes of poetic writing that reflect on and attempt to convey the odd neural sensations I experienced as a child which are driving forces for some of the work.


title: Faggots are the Future: A Research Through Design Qu𝘦ery (rtDq)

subject:
Identity (Philosophical concept)
Queer theory
Design
Gender identity
Semiotics

abstract: The following thesis is positioned as a personal and reflexive research through design journey. In this journey, I explore ways which gender and sexual identity are influential constituents in my design and the design field at large. Through the use of queer and feminist points of view I invite the reader to engage in a critical reimagining of the city, of myself, and of the white hetero cis man's design world. Premised on using a queer lens to reimagine Christopher Frayling's notion of research through Design (rtD)–I aspire to find and experiment with strategies that aim at creating space for explorations outside of personal and societal margins, borders, and binaries. The following work outlines my methods as a communication designer, and grounds these methods with queer and feminist underpinnings that encourage the implementation of identity into our design processes. I position the following body of research as a queery or a research through design queery (rtDq); A self-reflexive research journey that emphasizes and uncovers opportunities for design interventions that address elements of ‘other’-ness present in one's identity.


title: Drawing The Lines Of Female Sexuality

subject:
Women in art
Drawing
Feminism
Censorship
Figurative drawing

abstract: This thesis document seeks to explore and expand on the topic of gender and sexuality through representational figurative drawing. Specifically focusing on the female-identified form in current society, this thesis investigates the plurality of ways in which the gaze, feminist art practices, sexuality, censorship, and historical events have shaped, defined, and conditioned the perception of the female nude in art. By studying and researching the theories behind the gazes, the practice intends to subvert and refuse the masculine gaze, in attempts to place the feminine queer gaze at the forefront of artistic inquiry. Second wave feminist artists and fourth wave, postfeminist disciplines inspired the direction and intentions behind the work produced in the MFA program. This thesis paper provides analytical support to my exploration, uncensored.


title: Distant

subject:
Belonging (Social psychology)
Textiles
Crafts & decorating
Desire
Affect (Psychology)
Home

abstract: The horizon is a visual example of a distance that is physically unreachable. In this document, I define the horizon as both a metaphoric place where longing resides and also a physical site that can be seen. In other words, the horizon is an in-between space that we can perceive, but never physically reach. I believe that this is where longing resides. Longing for people, places, things, or communities that are somehow lost or unreachable. My work is adding to the discussions currently taking place around home, identity/belonging, and broader discussions of displacement within society. We are in interesting times, where technology has taken over our daily lives and our own hands have lost touch with the fabrics of our heritage, leaving us longing for connections we no longer understand. That is where my practice lives, within the distance between physical and metaphorical, interpersonal and introspective. Through the use of hand labor, familial skills and craft processes I am able to connect to the in between space where longing resides, allowing myself the ability to reconnect with people, places, and culture missed. The relationship between my body, the land, and traditional processes has pushed my own understanding of longing in relation to my cultural and societal identity.


title: For We Are The Children of The Sun

subject:
Genealogy
Identity (Philosophical concept)
African diaspora
Abstraction

abstract: For We Are The Children of The Sun is a thesis project which aims to utilize abstraction and non-figuration as methods of representation for Black Women on Turtle Island. Through a personal contemplation of identity and ancestry, symbols such as hair and the Sun function as connectors to the African diaspora, and its many manifestations of Blackness. The project also considers what it means to be making on Turtle Island: a place built on colonial genocide and where covert systems of oppression and manifestations of racism negate the national proclamation of diversity. The thesis project examines and refutes what it means to be ‘Canadian’, and rather turns to a diasporic community which extends past the borders of land. The objective is to reimagine representation for the Black Woman, and to center resilience and community as primary concerns, through a collaboration with the Sun.


title: Branding a Heritage City: A Contemporary Approach Used to Brand the Historical Identity of Ahmedabad, India

subject:
Branding (Marketing)
Ahmadābād (India)
Heritage
Visual communication

abstract: This thesis investigates how branding can be used to celebrate the historical identity of Ahmedabad, India. Branding a city can be a difficult task because cities are complex and constantly evolving. For a richly diverse and geographically vast country like India, it can be particularly challenging. The existing brand identity for Ahmedabad lacks an extensive, consistent visual identity system and uses stereotypical Indian motifs to represent the city. The thesis explores Ahmedabad’s colonial, pre-colonial and post-colonial heritage to find visual vernacular that is true to the region. These concentrated communication design-based studio explorations inform a larger exercise to represent the city of Ahmedabad visually. Other design research methods include photo analysis, case studies, observations and personal reflection. The thesis proposes a flexible brand identity system to capture the multiple realities of the city, its people, its tradition and cultural heritage. The final studio project is inspired by the windows of Ahmedabad. From 600-year-old monuments to residential pol houses to modernist buildings — windows have displayed a wide range of architectural heritage and played a huge role in defining what is important to Amdavadis. The research also creates a generic module that can be used to brand other Indian cities by looking at its tangible, intangible cultural heritage and its visual vernacular or graphic past.


title: Designing for Mindful Reflection: an Intertwined Vision of Design Practice and Everyday Life

contributor: dos Santos, Rodrigo (Rodrigo dos Santos) (author)

contributor: Emily Carr University of Art + Design Graduate studies (Degree granting institution)

format:
98 p.
electronic
electronic

rights: This thesis is available to view and copy for research and educational purposes only, provided that it is not altered in any way and is properly acknowledged, including citing the author(s), title and full bibliographic details.

subject:
Design research
Information visualization
Stress (psychology)

abstract: Today, more than-one quarter of the workforce population in Canada feels stressed (Government of Canada, 2015; Mental Health Commission of Canada [MHCC], 2015, p. 39), and work is one of the main sources of stress (Crompton, 2011, p. 46). Being self-aware, and conscious of the sources of our own stress are key for changing how we deal with everyday stressors.  The body of design research presented in this thesis resulted in a design framework for creating mindful reflection practices regarding how we perceive, express and contemplate our life experiences.  Through participatory design, individuals who feel stressed were engaged in co-creation and journaling activities in order to generate insights on: 1) how they were feeling during the day from an emotional, mental, physical and social perspective; 2) the possible reasons for such feelings; 3) the actions they took or envisioned taking in order to de-stress during that day. In a practice-led investigation, the ring patterns seen on the cross-section of a tree log were the inspiration for the design of visual and physical artefacts. These rings carry a lifetime of experiential information, suggesting that the way we choose to live our everyday experiences directly contribute to the person we become.

abstract: Submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Design.

abstract: Research for design

abstract: Design process

abstract: Design artefacts

abstract: Information visualization

abstract: Holistic visualization

abstract: Everyday life stress

abstract: Design for self-awareness

abstract: Mindful reflection practices

abstract: Participatory design research


title: Game-Play and Dialogue Synthesis in an RPG

type: thesis Text

format:
51 p.
electronic

subject: Computational and experimental methods--Design -- Social aspects--Interactive multimedia--Evaluation--Psychological aspects

subject: Computer games

abstract: This thesis details a design process that generates a synthesis between active-driven game-play and dialogue within a computer role playing game (RPG). I intend to generate a process where the player co-evolves with the narrative aspect of an RPG to increase his opportunity to engage and effect the narrative of the game experience. By introducing design methodologies into a game development context, I created adaptive tools through participatory design methods in order to better understand and alleviate points of negative friction during game-play in an RPG. My goal is to facilitate a smoother and more immersive game experience by combining game-play and dialogue together, with both spaces governed by the same cause-and-effect mechanism.

abstract: Psychology

abstract: Interaction Design

abstract: Design

abstract: Media


title: Learning to Play Again: Playground Designs That Create Opportunities for Spontaneous and Unstructured Play

contributor: Emily Carr University of Art and Design Graduate studies (Degree granting institution)

contributor: Gillieson, Katherine (Katherine Gillieson) (thesis advisor)

format:
92 p.
electronic
electronic

subject: Children Playgrounds Play Design

abstract:
The benefits and necessity of play for children have been well researched and documented. This project looks into unstructured and spontaneous play—activities that could encourage confidence and creativity—in the context of contemporary outdoor playgrounds and adventure playgrounds, and how playground instructions (both overt and covert) and the general design characteristics of these playgrounds affect the way children play around them.
The proposal developed within this project suggests possible ways of merging the best characteristics of adventure and contemporary playgrounds into solutions that offer increased opportunities for spontaneous and unstructured play for children from a speculative design standpoint. It also touches on additional considerations that could situate the proposal into more plausible solutions: for example, reconfiguring an existing site’s components to enhance it, or utilizing an otherwise unused parcel of land, amongst others.

abstract: Submitted in partial fulfillment of a Master of Design degree.

abstract: Risky play

abstract: Unstructured play

abstract: Spontaneous play

abstract: Pretend play

abstract: Creative play

abstract: Playground design

abstract: Adventure playgrounds

abstract: Nature

abstract: Outdoors

abstract: Structured activities


title: The Social Health Project

contributor: Galbraith, Bree (Bree Galbraith) (author)

format:
155 p.
electronic

subject:
Health Knowledge, Attitudes, Practice
Medical care
Caregivers
Design

abstract: As concerns in public healthcare come forward as priorities in British Columbia through observation of data, literature reviews, critical incident or political will (A.KING, PERSONAL COMMUNICATION, FEBRUARY 2015) a designer/design researcher is rarely involved at the forefront of a proposal phase, or early stages of strategy. Instead, design interventions take place when the findings have concluded, and results in visual form need to be communicated to stakeholders (reports, brochures, posters, websites, etc.). This Master of Design Thesis, the Social Health Project (SHP), challenges the traditional health-industry/design relationship, and explores the potential of design-oriented research methods to aid in the development of healthcare services and initiatives. The SHP Draws on research that pinpoints design innovation to be in the centre of three realms: feasibility, viability and desirability (STANFORD D. SCHOOL). Through consultation with healthcare professionals, literature reviews and ethnographic research (feasibility), interviews with caregivers, health professionals and co-creative activities (desirability), the Social Health Project describes a model for designers to use when working within multidisciplinary teams in the field of healthcare. This multidisciplinary approach is vital to the project's goal of a socially innovative system. In prototyping for this project, successful design interventions in healthcare are explained and illustrated, and a framework has been developed for designers to adopt when working in health-service design. A health network that aims to meet the needs of unpaid family caregivers, The Caregiver Access Network (CAN), has been developed using the framework described. A working prototype of the CAN system has been demonstrated with significant detail so it can be easily adopted and adapted by a health authority or other governing body (viability).

abstract: System design

abstract: Health design

abstract: Chronic conditions

abstract: Healthcare


title: What You Think, What We Know: Culturally Inclusive Narratives for Student Engagement in NZ

contributor: Mackenzie, Jordache (Jordache Mackenzie) (author)

contributor: Shackleton, Deborah (Deborah Shackleton) (thesis advisor)

format:
77 p.
electronic
electronic

subject:
Education
Universal design
Storytelling
Maori (New Zealand people)
Kura kaupapa Māori
Decolonization
Reciprocity (Commerce)

abstract: The design disciplines are increasingly struggling to address the systemic ecological, social and cultural issues affecting our global community, a call for alternative approaches to how designers shape interactions with the world. This design research builds on theory emerging from across the disciplines which argues that design, regarded as an “ontological instrument that is able to transform the social and cultural reality” (Tlostanova, 2017) which determines how we perceive and interpret the world, is in a state of “defuturing” (Fry, 1999), restricted by the coloniality of a north/western modernity to perceive and interpret the world within certain legitimized principles. What is needed and what this design research proposes is to start exploring ways in which design, grounded in indigenous principles and sensibilities might begin to create multiple realities and options outside of a context of modernity/coloniality for how we might be in the world. Primary research is undertaken in one part as a case study which seeks to explore curriculum around identity development in Aotearoa New Zealand, appropriating research methods which align with Māori epistemology, focused around collective participatory actions and relational understandings of being, grounded in matauranga, tikanga and kaupapa Māori. The intent of this research is to investigate potential opportunities for resources and supports that facilitate better pathways for learning and identity development with Māori students in New Zealand public schools at grades 5-6. Research is executed using a cultural design probe which, through a variety of activities, guides students to identify learning and future growth aspirations, support networks and identity markers. These activities include Make-a-Robot, which asks students to design a robot, assigning it personality and traits as well as physical and mental abilities, and allow insights to be drawn on students’ needs and aspirations. Cultural probes are useful here as they “offer a less obtrusive way of gathering information” (Celikoglu, Ogut and Krippendorff, 2017) and align with Māori principles and protocols. These principles and protocols begin with whakapapa, which recognizes the interconnected and relational nature of oneself within a larger social/environmental/spiritual network.

abstract: Inclusive design

abstract: Cultural identities

abstract: Design ethics

abstract: Decolonizing design


title: Reforming IKEA: Do-it-Yourself Projects and Everyday Objects in Disposable Culture

format:
91 p.
electronic
electronic

subject:
Design
Experiential learning
Consumption (Economics)
Material culture
Ikea (Firm)
Furniture

abstract: This project aims to gain an understanding of the relationships people have with everyday, domestic objects inside their urban living spaces using Do-it-Yourself (DIY) furniture making projects. Throughout the project, new knowledge is generated using hands-on making activities as a form of Research through Design (RtD). The primary objectives of this research are to open up and encourage these kinds of Do-it-Yourself, experiential learning activities as resources for people to draw on in their everyday lives. By innovating design interventions related to personal well-being and satisfaction with our objects, this project has led to the development of concrete design research exemplars demonstrating how DIY projects can operate as creative resources for everyday design. Through the design, implementation, and study of the artifacts created for DIY home customization, this research aims to support people in experiencing increased levels of self-satisfaction, well-being, and sense of value with their belongings. This investigation focuses on aspects of a domestic object’s importance, becoming an ‘Everyday Designer,’ customization, personalization and their respective relationships to consumption and material culture. As a result of this research, multiple DIY furniture projects and instructional booklets have been created to provide opportunities for everyone from non-designers to experienced makers to conduct a personal material exploration. Together with this creative act of hands-on making, everyday design practices allow people to reflect on the objects they own and why, while also achieving an increased sense of well-being and agency towards their domestic objects.

abstract: Submitted in partial fulfillment of a Master of Design Degree.

abstract: Everyday objects

abstract: Making

abstract: Research through Design

abstract: Do-it-Yourself projects

abstract: Experiential learning

abstract: Design research

abstract: Customization

abstract: Everyday designers

abstract: Personalization

abstract: Consumption

abstract: Material culture

abstract: IKEA


title: Designing Speculative Futures for Feminism: The Role of Designers and Participants the Exploration of Social Movements

contributor: White, Christina (Christina White) (author)

format:
111 p.
electronic
electronic

subject: Feminism

abstract: Language is a medium of communication that allows us to categorize, objectify, obscure, or abstract the world around us. While it provides us with structure, it also tightly connects us to societal conventions, which are not always egalitarian in nature. This is particularly relevant as it pertains to the persistence of socially imposed gender disparities - both genders are consistently victimized by the use of negative value judgments and derogatory terms based on appearance, personality, beliefs, or perceived status in relation to their gender. In contemporary society, feminist groups have long attempted to address this issue. Despite this, changes in North American society’s characterization of women and men have been insufficient to rectify the problem. Further, over the past decade the term ‘feminist’ has itself become largely pejorative due to the movement’s lack of cohesive direction and disconnection with prior definitions, as well as various stereotypes associated with the ideology. This thesis explores the potential of textiles and worn or consumer based product based artifacts as means to incite discussion and reflection on the frequent redefining and recontextualizing of the term ‘feminism’ in North American society. To that end, it reviews academic literature and examples of North American popular culture that pertain to both positive and negative uses of the word, and subsequently designs satirical artifacts to break down contemporary feminist discourse and gain an understanding of the polarizing theories within the movement. Phase one includes artifacts created by myself, the designer, while phase two and three contain artifacts created through collaboration and discussion with participants. This body of work describes an evolving generative model in which the designer acts first as an instigator of designed content, to a facilitator of speculative co- creation that draws on participants’ abilities to create narratives and ‘re-imagine’ garments and finally to designer as reactive speculator where participant created artifacts are expanded upon in order to open up sites for further discussion and future actions.

abstract: Co-creation

abstract: Speculative design

abstract: Design for social innovation

abstract: Critical artifacts


title: Playing in Class: Placing Play With Credibility in the Design Classroom

contributor: Edwards, Allison (Allison Edwards) (author)

format:
89 p.
electronic

subject:
Design education
Design students
Creative process
Classroom dynamics
Play

abstract:
This research through design project explores methods for encouraging playful moments in university design classes. It is informed by scholars such as Dr. Stewart Brown, Dr. Scott Eberle, Dr Brian Sutton-Smith, and Pat Kane, all of whom re-contextualize play as an instinctual, necessary, and beneficial experience. This project proposes a range of playful moments, or Interludes, based upon Play Patterns established by the National Institute for Play (1992). The Interludes were developed, tested and refined through 18 months of focused ethnographic studies and student surveys. The Interludes were categorized into the framework of the 'PlayBook' which supports the facilitation of play; making these moments accessible for design instructors and credible in a university context.
Research showed that the Interludes are bene cial to designers and can be easily adapted to a variety of classroom settings. During these activities, students reported feeling more energetic, less stressed, and less pressured. The ethnographic study observed students engaging in the design process in more personally relevant, collaborative, and creative ways, reaffirming elements of a playful experience as defined by NOKIA Research Center (2011). The Interludes are designed with minimal structure, so as to retain the voluntary, personally unique experiences that are essential to play. Using the Interludes in the 'PlayBook' as a jumping off point, this project can act as an actionable step towards a more naturally playful pedagogy.

abstract: Design pedagogy

abstract: Design resources

abstract: Design instruction

abstract: Play in design classes


title: When Nature Hacks Design

contributor: Camozzi, Raymond (Zach) (Raymond Camozzi) (author)

format:
124 p.
electronic
electronic

subject:
Outdoor education
Environmental education

abstract:
This thesis details my journey of learning how to design in partnership with nature. This process took place in sequence; increasing the distance from home: the front yard, the park, and finally in remote wilderness. All of these places demanded full body attention, producing rich experiences that were unpredictable, thought provoking and brimming with content for creativity. I experimented with the boundary of control between designer and nature, inviting nature to engage with me through experiential prototypes that probed the division or relationship between design and nature. I learned how some of the tools and mindsets of a designer supported this engagement or hindered it.
I offer a method for designers who wish to connect more fully to nature in their work, called Earthbond Prototyping. Earthbond prototyping borrows from experience prototyping, designing to produce engagement “between people, places and objects that unfold over time” (Buchenau et al, 2000 p.431). I use the skills and techniques of design to navigate boundaries between aspects of the natural world to recognize new relationships between design and nature. More than ever designers need to instinctually allow environmental ethics, and principles held within nature, to inform and challenge their design decisions.

abstract: Submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Masters of Design.

abstract: Bio-inclusive design

abstract: Nature immersion

abstract: Experiential prototyping

abstract: Ecologic self

abstract: Earthbond prototyping


title: Designing Games For Teaching Typography

format:
147 p.
electronic
electronic

subject: Typography Teaching

abstract: This thesis investigates interactive and engaging learning experiences to teach fundamentals of typography to anyone who otherwise does not have any formal education of typography. The thesis uses two different approaches to do so–one where learning outcomes and objectives are direct, and another in which they are indirect. The first approach explores games that can be used to effectively educate users about the fundamentals of typography, like anatomy of type by understanding the structure of letterforms, and classification of typography. The second approach investigates how an app might be used to learn about typography from a user’s surroundings. Design research methods include a studio-based approach, where evaluative testing and observational trials were core sources of insights. Other methods include interviews, surveys and precedent reviews. These insights further inform studio prototypes of varying fidelities and ultimately, final mockups for the proposed forms of engagement. Thus, this project hopes to make typography accessible to everyone who is interested in learning about typography by using a variety of physical and digital mediums.


title: Eyewitness: Platform Design for Visualizing and Synthesizing Media Video Content of Political Significance

type: thesis Collection Text

subject: Photography--Photojournalism--Mass media--Social media--Citizen journalism--Online journalism

abstract: This paper explores the conventions and limitations of the photographic medium, both material and representational. Suggesting that photography is situated at an important point within its evolution, the paper searches for new directions within a photo-based practice, which continues to challenge and push the limits of the medium. Examining the way in which photography mediates and shapes experience, this thesis engages with popular photography, as a language with its own syntactical and semantic rules. Through explorations of the syntax of photography, parallels are drawn between the structure of language and the structure of photography. Metonymic structures within photographic language are discussed, with examples of the artist's work that aim to reveal and disrupt the metonymic nature of images. The role of collecting in the practice is defined as a first step in a process of coming to understand the world and its representations. Asserting the power of collage to disrupt and challenge representations, through a process of play and embracing ambiguity and uncertainty, the thesis culminates with a discussion of the development of genre mixing within the practice as a necessary evolution.


title: Indeterminacy in Language and Art

contributor: Arnold, Vanessa (Vanessa Arnold) (author)

format:
37 p.
electronic

subject: Indeterminacy (Linguistics)--Language Philosophy--Translating and interpreting--Art -- Philosophy

abstract: Indeterminacy, triangulation, and translation are often contributing factors to the experience and understanding of a work of art in which meaning can be multi-layered, shifting or malleable. In this thesis, I explore these concepts, both in relation to my art practice and within a historical and cultural context. In essence, these theoretical discussions describe the instantiation of a philosophical idea in a visual art practice. In this way, the thesis can be generally understood as an exploration in the area of the philosophy of language, looking to its application as an impetus for creating visual art, and as an explanatory device for visual art. There are three key philosophers whose ideas are instantiated in my art practice – W.V.O. Quine, Ludwig Wittgenstein, and Donald Davidson. Quine offers the theory of radical translation, which is the translation from an unknown language to a known language, without aid or precedent. Wittgenstein offers the concept of indeterminacy of language, which asserts that multiple meanings for a singular item may be correct. Davidson offers the theory of triangulation, in which a combination of the beliefs and intentions of the artist and of the viewer, each triangulate with the work of art, to make meaning. I discuss three artists whose work has been an inspiration – Joseph Kosuth, Sarah Lucas, and Ann Hamilton. The way these artists use language, humour, and code relates to indeterminacy, reception, and obfuscation. The goal of this essay is to explore the relations between art and philosophy, as a means to develop critical reflection on the methodologies underpinning my own art practice.

abstract: Linguistics


title: The Illuminated Body: Excerpts from an Atlas of Illness and Injury

contributor: De Luna, Karen Garrett (Karen Garrett De Luna) (author)

format:
63 p.
electronic

subject: Skin Photography Touch

abstract: Using the metaphor of a body atlas, this paper charts an exploration of the sense of touch. Although photography is considered to be a visual art, The Illuminated Body demonstrates the ways in which the sense of touch underlies an embodied point of view. Monochromatic self-portraits layered and embossed with enigmatic healing talismans lend a physical and emotional tactility to the photographic project. The relationship of touch to visible and invisible pains and the materialization of memory on the skin reveal a reciprocality between self and other, inside and out.  Buddhist philosophy considers mind to be a sixth sense and regards touch as fundamental to the process of perception. Phenomenology reflects the importance of intentionality in the first person point of view and the unavoidability of a reciprocal relationship with the world; as the world touches us through our sense perceptions, so do we touch the world. A synthesis of the two philosophies is possible only by acknowledging the uniqueness of an incarnate perspective, firmly rooted in the flesh. Skin can be understood as receptacle for memory, not only in the stories of scars, but also in the inevitable co-mingling of sensation and memories. A number of photographic artists including Geneviève Cadieux, Annette Messager and Myra Greene work with fragmented body parts and skin, weaving fiction, history and metaphor into moving stories of the flesh. The Illuminated Body draws on a constellation of ideas in these and other artists' works to contextualize and search for resonance in photographic self-portraiture. Using illness and injury as a points of departure, The Illuminated Body uses of discourses of skin and touch to elucidate the commonalities of human experience that are hidden within personal narrative and associative memory.

abstract: Phenomenology

abstract: Buddhism

abstract: Body

abstract: Self-portrait


title: Whiteness Is As Whiteness Does: An Examination Of Ideological Whiteness In Art

contributor: Lindemulder, Joanne (Joanne Lindemulder) (author)

format:
53 p.
electronic

subject:
Race identity
Sculpture

abstract: This paper considers how the ideology of Whiteness is reflected in visual art. I examine how my visual practice flows out from my grappling with the contentious ideology of Whiteness. By considering how I may navigate such a discussion, I take two approaches. It is necessary to step back, as much as is possible, to provide critical distance. At the same time I consider my own subjectivity and lived experience as a source of knowledge. These two approaches reinforce the ideas I have chosen to highlight in this paper: interpellation, and embodiment. Additionally, both a clinical approach and lived experience are reflective of two streams of work I have produced throughout the MAA research period. I discuss four projects: dollhouse, The Cleaning Girl and the Boarder, Scope, and Skin Tags. I ground the discussion of these projects with an examination of the ideas of interpellation as discussed by philosophers Louis Althusser and Slavoj Žižek. To support an embodied position I explore the arguments of cultural theorist Sara Ahmed, as well as historians Lorraine Daston and Peter Galison. To provide context for these theories and my work, I also discuss, among others, selected projects by artists William Pope.L, Jenny Saville, Wangechi Mutu, and Izhar Patkin, as well as a collaborative project by Mike Kelley and Paul McCarthy. Several complications are also considered and in particular how the idea of normalcy is connected to the way Whiteness is constructed. These approaches on the ideas of subjectivity, embodied orientation, interpellation, and normalcy frame the discourse on the ideology of Whiteness in this paper.

abstract: Psychology

abstract: Installations


title: Moist, Mucous, Membrane: Insight on Painting, Objects and Identity

format:
60 p.
electronic
electronic

subject:
Painting
Identity
Sex
Brazil
Amulets
Abject art

abstract: Submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements of the degree of Master of Fine Arts.

abstract: Objects

abstract: Sexuality

abstract: Body

abstract: Excess

abstract: Foul language


title: Between Private and Public: The Artist in Flux

contributor: Guindon, Ashley (Ashley Guindon) (author)

format:
46 p.
electronic

subject: Participatory art--Video Art--Process--Ritual--Collaboration

abstract: This thesis essay explores my growth as an artist over the course of the MAA, Visual Arts Stream. Initially, I investigate a conventional private studio practice that explores ritual (Bataille), subjectivity (Baudrillard), defamiliarization (Viktor Schlovsky) and the act of looking (Mark Lewis). Later, it documents a shifting towards a practice that is collaborative, participatory, or otherwise open to others and that borrows techniques and tropes from community art (Betsy Damon, Suzanne Lacy), social practice (Anthony Schrag, Claire Bishop) and dialogical practice (Grant Kester, Stephen Willats). The thesis art work explored in the essay includes various video projects from the first year of the MAA which demonstrate my explorations of ritual and subjectivity (Waver Dither Falter, Water Oil Wine, Benny). I also explore an ongoing series of projects from the second year of my MAA, which incorporate participation and collaboration with others as a means of experimenting with the possibilities of an open practice (The We Sessions). Though all the works result in immersive video installations around the subject of ritual, the process changes in the latter work. Specifically, The We Sessions, combined with the research essay, question the implications of these changes from historical, artistic, and critical viewpoints, both for myself and also for the art-world at large.


title: Food Body Place

subject: Queer theory--Painting--Drawing

abstract: My work aims to question how historic tropes shape the way personal identity is formed in relation to sexuality, specifically in relation to masculinity and queerness. By using the symbols which are representative of my cultural background, I aim to find ways in which the inherent sexuality in these symbols can be brought forward – a queering of the iconography I am surrounded by. A Butlerian understanding of sexuality tells us that gender is on a spectrum – the polarities of masculine and feminine are archetypes that no one actually inhabits and are perpetuated by the media. Through art making I aim to break down these archetypes of gender and sexuality that are enforced in subtle and nuanced ways. This essay investigates ways in which form and line can corrode the propaganda that is enforced by western media concerning gender archetypes. In my current artistic practice I have chosen to mostly focus on my childhood upbringing as a model to express how gender is enforced through the iconography I am surrounded by. I grew up in a factory town, a town where everyone’s lives revolved around working for one company: McCain Foods. I have chosen to use this company to represent my childhood experience but also to reflect on the history of the place I came from. Munoz’s ideas of disidentification and Ahmed’s theorizing of disorientation are tools that have allowed me to explore personal cultural iconography rooted in the local of the Maritimes, which can be exclusive. Through contortion of form and by emphasizing sexual connotations I create a queering of the local industries of my own family history. Food has given me a vessel for commentary on my personal experience concerning sexuality, and I look forward to creating new works that deal with these themes.


title: From the Subtle to the Hyperbolic: The Rise of Irony, Camp and Kitsch in 20th Century Photography

contributor: Mussallem, Kathryn (Kathryn Mussallem) (author)

subject: Photography--Photography, Artistic--Kitsch--Nostalgia in art--Irony in art

abstract: I am an ironist, a lover and creator of ironies. In my photographic practice as well as my everyday life I embrace irony in all its forms. In my written thesis I will discuss irony, the different factors that relate to and lead us to irony: kitsch, camp, cliché, nostalgia and the celebration of the banal, leading this exploration with a discussion of my chosen media for delivery of irony, photography. In 20th century photography there has been a gradual progression in irony from a subtle hidden gesture that was there to be encoded by the intended learned audience of the art world to an eventual full out hyperbolic critique that leaves nothing for interpretation but irony. This irony that requires no interpretation is the ironic dialogue that exists in much of photography today. In discussing the different variations of ironic utterances and creations, there are three major variants that I wish to discuss that specifically relate to how irony is used in photography: the interpreted (which can be ironic to some), the pointed (irony with a victim) and the stated (this is ironic!). I will then discuss how these forms of irony specifically relate to selections of work from the photographers I have chosen. I will also refer to cultural and photographic theory as it relates to irony and its use in photography and postmodern culture – referring to the work of Susan Sontag, Roland Barthes, Linda Hutcheon and Martha Rosler amongst others. I have chosen to discuss a selection of photographers that span the 20th century to illustrate my thesis point, I will discuss the photographers in chronological order to illustrate this evolution of irony in photography: Walker Evans, Robert Frank, Diane Arbus, Garry Winogrand, Stephen Shore, Robert Adams, Bill Owens, William Eggleston and Martin Parr. This list of photographers is by no means representative of all of photography and photo-based art but a chronological selection of artists from the canon of mainstream photography. I will limit my discussion of artists to the boundaries of mainstream photography and the realist tradition within photography of the 20th century. In this discussion of irony’s development in 20th century photography I will also refer to my body of photographic work, how it uses irony and how it relates to the artists discussed in the history of photography. As a student of photography I am influenced by all the artists that I will discuss and I find parallels between their uses of irony and my own.

abstract: Camp

abstract: Irony


title: Painting Things

contributor: Emily Carr University of Art and Design Graduate Studies (Degree granting institution)

format:
42 p.
electronic

subject: Painting

abstract: This essay traces the evolution of my practice-driven, reflexive investigation surrounding the iterative process of painting things. The body of work described in the essay follows the chronology of my studio production as I explore methods of observational painting. The accompanying historical and theoretical research revolves around contemporary painting discourse, object-hood and visual perception. Questions around painting as contemporary practice are approached through topics of still life, materialism, observation, repetition, abstraction, and painting’s material language. The object retains a central role in this research as my paintings are grounded within the context of the still life. Referencing critical theory surrounding human-object interactions, including the writing of Jane Bennett and Bill Brown, I consider how vibrant matter and thing theory inform my perception of still life objects, as well as the vitality and agency of the painting itself. Weaving together writing of WJT Mitchell, James Elkins and Maurice Merleau-Ponty, I propose that the practice of observational painting can reveal a transformational and reciprocal exchange between observer and observed from which dominant subject-object hierarchies are dispelled. Through the repetition, obstruction and the concept of afterimage, I intend for my work to move beyond observed depictions of objects to approach the questions of where an object ends, the subject begins, and how these dualisms mingle and coalesce within the space of painting. To further my awareness and understanding of what constitutes the work of a painting, this essay aims to interrogate the double nature and function of the medium: as a mimetic representation of things in the world, and as an autonomous, vibrant entity composed of its own material logic and language. From this logic, the potentials of representation give way to the immanent qualities of surface, colour, form and materiality. The complexities and limits of representational painting are further addressed through historical and contemporary artist references, including Paul Cézanne, Giorgio Morandi, Philip Guston and Amy Sillman.

abstract: In support of the fulfillment of the degree of Master of Applied Arts at Emily Carr University of Art and Design.

abstract: Still life


title: Personalized Wayfinding System for Airport Navigation

contributor: Hawari, Sirine Khalil (Sirine Khalil Hawari) (author)

format:
77 p.
electronic

subject: Public spaces--Airports--Communication in architectural design--Airports--Space (Architecture)

subject: Information technology

abstract: The objective of this thesis is to study people’s navigation flow throughout architectural spaces and to provide a further observation of how user’s notions and senses tend to guide their spontaneous movement within a space. This study explores the use of “smart”, self-personalized digital signage and wayfinding system using existing technologies (AGPS, RFID, Face Detection, QR codes, and Augmented Reality) to locate and navigate users through space to their intended destination without the interference of other misleading information. Specifically, the implementation focuses on assisting in travelers’ navigation to their required destination in international airports.

abstract: Personal, noncommercial use of this item is permitted.

abstract: Space

abstract: Architecture

abstract: Design

abstract: Mapping

abstract: Psychology


title: In Process

type: Text thesis Collection Text

contributor: Cutler, Randy Lee (Randy Lee Cutler) (thesis advisor)

format:
45 p.
electronic

subject:
Sculpture
Found objects (Art)
Art

abstract: This thesis document outlines several bodies of work that exist along a continuum of ongoing material process. In thinking through different sets of work, I seek to find through lines and consider past ways of making and thinking. In so doing, I hope to reaffirm to the reader, and to myself, the importance of patience, of attending and responding to one’s surroundings while knowing that the movement of process will be towards ever more resonant forms of making.

abstract: Veneer

abstract: Material

abstract: Process


title: Drawing Mindfulness

contributor: Buer, Stephanie (Stephanie Buer) (author)

contributor: Reeves, Ben (Ben Reeves) (thesis advisor)

subject: Drawing Landscapes Mindfulness Meditation Walking Painting

abstract: Charcoal Solitude


title: Prototyping Design Kitchen - Food design in practice and in principle

contributor: Zabolotney, Bonne (Bonne Zabolotney) (thesis advisor)

format:
86 p.
electronic

subject:
Graphic design
Art direction
Food
Visual communication
Food habits

abstract: This thesis investigates how visual communication can be used to celebrate, discuss and brand humans’ playful and precarious interactions with food. Cooking up a niche visual design practice driven by food is a challenging task because food experiences are complex and constantly evolving. For someone who comes from a rich, diverse and geographically vast country like India, there is a scope for abundant inspiration but with a set of challenges. The existing discourse around food lacks literacy — specifically visual literacy. There is constant ‘food exchange’ happening globally but the rapid scale of that has led to lost narratives and mixed up meanings.  This thesis explores a design practice that reflects on humanity’s deep connections with food. It’s a deeply personal practice that promotes really seeing the man-made wonder that food is. It aims to create a body of visual work that enlightens, educates and entertains. Concentrated communication design-based studio explorations, on a personal and commercial scale,  inform the exercise to represent my interactions with food visually. My design research methods include photo analysis, case studies, observation and personal reflection through making. The thesis sets guiding principles/systems to capture what design can do for food and vice-versa. My studio projects are various explorations of works to revitalize our connection to the foods we eat. The research also creates tangible experiences out of edible artifacts to reflect on culture, culinary and nostalgic themes.

abstract: Infrastructure

abstract: Download for optimal viewing experience.

abstract: Food photography

abstract: Food design

abstract: Emotional design

abstract: Order in chaos

abstract: Food forward

abstract: Food therapy

abstract: Evocative object

abstract: Food culture


title: Diegetic Artifacts:  Exploring the relationship between speculative fiction and its objects

contributor: Padmanabhan, Shankar (Shankar Padmanabhan) (author)

contributor: Gaur, Sophie (Sophie Gaur) (thesis advisor)

format:
50 p.
electronic

subject:
Discursive works
Artifacts
Speculative fiction
Phenomenology
Design

abstract:
Discursive practice enables the critical examination of future potentials highlighting explicit and implicit scenarios reflecting history(ies) and social and cultural constructs.
Within this discourse, the functionality of an object and its material agency in relationship to the environment and technology, elicits a meaningful exploration of the lived experience.
This thesis draws upon these components and presents a contextual approach and methodology that considers the way in which diegetic artifacts and their relevance can be considered.

abstract: Diegetic

abstract: Speculative

abstract: Material agency

abstract: Design fiction


title: The Listening Body: Sound and the Sensory Apprehension of Movement

contributor: Lantin, Maria (Maria Lantin) (thesis advisor)

format:
70 p.
electronic

subject:
Sound art
Installations (Art)
Sound installations (Art)

abstract: Through the Master of Fine Arts program at Emily Carr University of Art + Design my work has focused on the mediated moving body as my research investigates the concept of embodiment for joy, self-awareness, and self-reflexivity. Art is an ideal vehicle to explore different ways of knowing, beyond cognition, by encouraging feeling through aesthetic affect. I came into the MFA program with professional experience in film and videography and a background in the performing arts, which influences how I approach an audience of viewers and listeners. A significant development to my practice has been the use of sound as material, working with its illusory potential, and depicting the presence of the moving body through experimental processes and makeshift sound installations. My thesis research is driven by a desire to understand, through experience; sensory perception, embodiment, the palpability of human presence through sound, and how to apprehend features of the world by listening and generating a felt sense of the physical body in space.

abstract: Perception

abstract: Spatial sound

abstract: Sensory

abstract: Audience experience

abstract: Movement

abstract: Embodiment

abstract: Immersive

abstract: Virtual


title: Breaking the Binary: Exploring Orality in India through Typography, Cryptography and Craft

contributor: Neat, Cameron (Cameron Neat) (thesis advisor)

format:
216 p.
electronic

subject:
Cryptography
Embroidery
Crafts (art genres)
Typography

abstract:
This thesis explores the fluidity of language through the fusion of heterogenous visual traditions — creating hybrid forms and coded communication. It voyages through the linguistic landscape of India. Delving into its social, political and cultural identities it finds expression in typography, cryptography, craft arts and poetry. From this body of work emerged the hybrid typeface Latinagari, a character set that fuses the letterforms of the Devanagari and Latin scripts.

Embodying both forms it is also neither. Being familiar to readers of either script, yet obscure. It both invites and denies the viewer’s desire to read. Representing the in-between spaces of spoken language in India, it is its own being.
Through it, a novel graphic language finds form and with it new opportunities for expression, communication and mis-communication. Like the way Hindi flows to English and back in contemporary Indian culture this visual vocabulary becomes its own thing, An expression of identity, a linguistic code and a way of knowing.

abstract: Communication design

abstract: Cryptography

abstract: Embroidery

abstract: Craft

abstract: Coded communication

abstract: Multilingual typography


title: BINDING THREADS: Shifting role of the designer from sole author to multi-story-enabler in fashion

contributor: Atighi Lorestani, Elham (Elham Atighi Lorestani) (author)

contributor: Day Fraser, Hélène (Hélène Day Fraser) (thesis advisor)

subject:
Storytelling
Artistic collaboration
Fashion design
Identity
Clothing and dress

abstract:
Fashion has always been about telling stories and yet some stories are never told in the design process. All too frequently they are also missing in the clothing we wear. Hidden or neglected stories such as those connected to the experiences of displacement are important. They have value and are part of the identity construction for many people in the 21st century. Whether it is through a lived experience of moving or through the cultural convergence of mass media, individuals around the world are affected by the overwhelming pace of change in their surroundings and their social contexts. So the concept of identity and the need for a sense of self-expression are critical. The clothing we wear is arguably one of the most effective means to convey our personal identity and self-expression to/and with others.
This thesis describes a project that has drawn on the potential of storytelling as a framework for the design process as well as the means for connection and self-expression. A platform has been envisaged and developed that invites people to engage with fashion in a way that enables a designer/researcher to consider, critique and suggest an alternative way of looking at the fashion service and design process that embraces multi-storytelling.
Initiated by my personal journey of moving to a new country, early exploration in this practice-based research began with self-cultural discovery and storytelling. This phase of work not only offered the initial context and medium for future research but also provided me with an understanding of the potential of visual and/or oral storytelling for healing, expression and connection. Following this phase, through a series of workshops with peers, I explored clothing as a context for sharing stories of moving, home and identity. The knowledge and insight created through each study informed the development of subsequent research activities. Drawing on collaborative design, networking and heuristic inquiry, my approach has led me to realize that clothing, beyond being tangible and interactive, is highly evocative.  All of this work has informed the development of a digital platform prototype, which seeks to invite people to share, read and wear personal moving experiences with others, acting as both an initiator and holder of stories, providing new ways for clothing to be accessed and made.
Through my research, I have explored ways of designing clothes that are collaborative and act to give people a genuine way to express and share who they are. My work asserts the importance of critically evaluating how we engage with designing clothes. I have done so with the conviction that the common role of the fashion designer as the sole originator and storyteller is flawed, considering instead the role of the designer/ the design process as a multi-stories enabler.

abstract: User experience design

abstract: Displacement

abstract: Co-creation

abstract: Home

abstract: Clothing

abstract: Designer/Clothing as multiple-story-enabler

abstract: Interaction design

abstract: System design


title: Atado con alambre: Repairing and reconstructing my crafts practice through practice-based research

format:
117 p.
electronic

subject:
Crafts (art genres)
Design
Professional practice
Metalworking
Woodwork

abstract: This practice-based research addresses my crafts practice to redirect through design my professional activity as a woodworker and metalworker. The thesis documents and reflects on my work and findings over the course of a one-and-a-half-year process of engaging with reflective practice and practice-based research. The work approaches creative and expressive-related concerns through thematic forms, repetition, and reinterpretation, and inquiries about the affordances and distinct mindsets of designing and making through productive perspectives as contrasting as lo-fi hand-making and the use of digital means for designing and fabricating. The design outcomes range from small objects produced in domestic settings as part of weekly assignments, to months-long, self-driven projects producing big pieces of furniture at the shops in the university.

abstract: Entrepreneurship

abstract: Practice-based research


title: A THESIS PAPER TO FULFILL THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE DEGREE OF MASTER OF DESIGN

contributor: Betts, Chloe D'Leen (Chloe D'Leen Betts) (author)

contributor: Frid-Jimenez, Amber (Amber Frid-Jimenez) (thesis advisor)

format:
14413 p.
electronic

subject: Discrimination against people with disabilities

subject: Performance art

subject: Institutional Critique (Art movement)

abstract:
A performance of my frustration, and the frustration of my community, with the inaccessibility of higher education.
FOR MORE INFORMATION REGARDING THE FORMATTING OF THIS DOCUMENT VISIT:
https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1lj2FWXt9Y1xrX14stQw6fXR24IeO6xL2?usp=sharing

FOR AN ACCESSIBLE VERSION OF THIS DOCUMENT PLEASE EMAIL:
dleenchloe@gmail.com (dleen chloe at gmail dot com)
OR VISIT: https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/19v6H7ebCzV8T1Br6p5A0WkiEK2mHidEG?usp=sharing

abstract: Crip theory

abstract: Resistance

abstract: Inaccessibility

abstract: Ableism

abstract: Disability justice


title: arrhythmias: artistic interventions in the age of the algorithm

contributor: Carruth, Christopher M. (Christopher M. Curruth) (author)

format:
43 p.
electronic

subject:
New media art
Digital art
Algorithms
Machine learning
Walking

abstract:
This paper and the works which it supports demonstrate the form and function of artistic interventions into our increasingly mediated lives as a recurring theme in my practice. I reflect and react to the inherent value and urgency of doing so within our current age of the algorithm by placing the work and underlying concepts to be in conversation with literary figures, contemporary artists, and scholars - all of whom similarly work various angles of this conceit, albeit from different perspectives and in various media. While the methods range, the heart of the work - and the state of my practice - remains the same; the red throughline is that of exploring the mutual influence of technology and society, ultimately creating attentional prosthetics to help (re)define productivity. I am working with/in/against/through technologies in my practice; our technology has charged ahead, leaving our heads and hearts lagging behind.

My interest in this thread of research and work stems from a professional unfolding in information sciences which itself led me down the complicated path of critically examining the societal impacts, ethical issues, and philosophical questions related to our modern information age. This ongoing engagement at the intersection of technology and society has shaped a positionality which seeks to neither demonize or glorify the technologies at play, but rather, as an artist, desires to help audiences reflect, resist, and redefine their own relationships to such at both the collective and individual level.

In the body of work presented as a thesis exhibition, including the intended method of engaging with this paper, I will illustrate specific gestures which point towards the greater effort: there is value and necessity in interrupting and/or subverting the role of contemporary technologies in to provide an attentional prosthetic which itself allows one to be more fully in the generosity of this moment.

abstract: Time

abstract: Intervention

abstract: Creative coding

abstract: Internet

abstract: Hyperproductivity


title: Revolutionary Foundations in Cultural Production and Nonabyssal Praxis

contributor: Pillay, Yaazhin (Yaazhin Pillay) (author)

contributor: Drennan ElAwar, Daniel (Daniel Drennan ElAwar) (thesis advisor)

format:
51 p.
electronic

subject:
Decolonization
Anti-apartheid activists
Anti-imperialist movements
Sculpture
Printmaking

abstract: The writing presented in this paper attempts to break down the broad structures within which I exist. I would like to preface the document by stating that I see the writing and art presented in this paper as steps in a broader effort to gain agency and dignity for my community in South Africa and comrades around the world. I hope to examine the complexities of oppression experienced by and perpetuated within subaltern communities. It is imperative that we orient such discussions away from symptomatic issues such as race relations and reductive identity politics, focusing instead on deeper systemic problems such as class disparity and the lasting effects of our colonial past. I wish to first establish a foundational understanding of the violence experienced by colonised peoples and explore the means by which the global South has resisted coloniality and subjugation. It is my duty to honour my heritage and culture in my work and to refocus the discourse of art and culture born under these oppressive structures to reflect value systems that lead to a culture of protest and resistance. To evidence my work with cultures and cultural products without first recognising their rejection from these oppressive institutions would not allow for an honest understanding of their context and value and would only further their consumption as inferior entities. I aim to celebrate my culture outside the purview of the western institution and to utilise cultural resistance to said systems as the underpinnings of my own production. As Paulo Freire models, the fight for freedom as pursued by the oppressed is in part to save the oppressor who can no longer save themselves (Freire 18). Such efforts, though limited by their context, may present a starting point for honest discourse and potential internal shifts both systemically and individually. I thank you for giving me your time and recognise our interaction here as praxis, latent with the potential for change.

abstract: Global South

abstract: Revolution

abstract: Resistance

abstract: Print Media

abstract: Visual Arts

abstract: Praxis


title: In(queer)ies: Pedagogical Praxis and Ceramics Handbuilding towards Fluidity

contributor: Emily Carr University of Art and Design Graduate Studies (Degree granting institution)

contributor: Lee Cutler, Randy (Randy Lee Cutler) (thesis advisor)

format:
49 p.
electronic

subject:
Teaching--Philosophy
Teaching--Philosophy--Hawaii
Ocean
Pottery (visual works)
Ceramic process
LGBTQ+ people

abstract: Fluidity is explored through the intersections of teaching pedagogy, handbuilding ceramics, and Buddhist spirituality. This paper supports the research and progression to the Immersion installation encompassing witnessing through film and clay. Studio explorations include nurturing queer curiosities in a middle school setting, dialogue with artist Hilma af Klint’s work , and development in an embodied practice with the Pacific Ocean from the Island of Oʻahu, Hawaiʻi, the familial ʻāina and wai (land and water) of the Kānaka Maoli people.

abstract: Teaching pedagogy

abstract: Ocean

abstract: Hawaii

abstract: Queer

abstract: Ceramics

abstract: Handbuilding

abstract: Fluidity

abstract: Embodied practice

abstract: Witnessing

abstract: Gender


title: ENVIRONMENTAL COMICS: Sequential Storytelling as Tool and Teacher Amid Ecological Precarity

contributor: Cutler, Randy Lee (Randy Lee Cutler) (thesis advisor)

format:
62 p.
electronic

subject:
Graphic novels
Ecology
Comic books, strips, etc.
Teaching--Methodology

abstract: This body of work is a response to the question of how to adapt as an artist amid ecological crisis and failure. Using a multidisciplinary approach, I explore environmental comics as a concept, practice, and teaching method. Following Scott McCloud and Sean Carelton’s definitions of comics as a medium based in visual relationality, I examine how its rich history of exploring other than human perspectives, nontraditional storytelling methods and populist readership, provide a unique format for this time. The manifestation of this research has included a published essay surveying contemporary works; place-based comic workshops in the model of ecopedagogy and Lynda Barry’s instructional book Making Comics (2019); an online resource center outlining artistic strategies for environmental comics, functioning similarly to Lisa Jevbratt’s student hub for her former Interspecies Collaboration class; and an autobiographical webcomic. Though not offered as a political solution, by placing myself in the role of facilitator, researcher, and artist, I am trying to deepen my engagement and responsibilities to my human and nonhuman communities.

abstract: Environment

abstract: Ecopedagogy


title: Wild Hair

subject:
Hair in art
Textiles
Textile art
Stop-motion photography
Cyanotypes
Animation
Spiritualism
Kinetic sculpture

abstract: My object of inquiry and main artistic muse is human hair. Through a research-based interdisciplinary practice, I am investigating hair as an art material. I am drawn to connect with hair as an energetic object, a vibrant material made of human cells, one that retains the energy of its human host even after it is physically disconnected. Using the techniques of stop motion animation, solar printing, assemblage, and interdisciplinary craft, I explore methods for collaborating with and expressing the vital energy of hair, as defined by Jane Bennett in the book Vibrant Matter. Hair has been widely used in ritual and art throughout history and possesses a supernatural potential. It also carries immense social and political weight. With this in mind, I approach this work with care and conscientiousness. In this practice, I draw upon the spiritualist movement, my matrilineage of craft, the histories of craftspeople who have also worked with hair in the production of ritual objects, and my generous hair donors.

abstract: Fiber

abstract: Intuition

abstract: New materialism


title: Green Gold

contributor: Bushby Henning von Hennig, Andrea (Andrea Bushby Henning von Hennig) (author)

contributor: Lam, Gwenessa (Gwenessa Lam) (thesis advisor)

contributor: Hilder, Jamie (Jamie Hilder) (thesis advisor)

subject:
Animism
Animism--Mexico
Belonging (Social psychology)
Sculpture
Material culture
Henequen (Plant)

abstract: “What does it mean to be here?” This was the initial research question of this thesis. Over the course of my MFA, I have lived in two countries: Canada (my birthplace) and Mexico. But the question of belonging is more than merely geographical. What began with a focus on questioning what it meant to belong in either country developed into an understanding of how knowledge creation develops in my practice. Through an iterative collaborative process with henequén fibre, I came closer to understanding childhood influences on my practice and politics in modes of making. With common Mexican materials, I began to learn and respect the unpredictable ecologies of plants and objects. This thesis is my attempt to make sense of our world through the social, corporeal, and sculptural components in my practice. It is a journey that will begin over and over again, and is led by my curiosity in the question: How have we been made?

abstract: Material experimentation

abstract: Knowledge-creation

abstract: Henequén fibre

abstract: Botanicals

abstract: Sculpture

abstract: Process-oriented practice

abstract: Belonging

abstract: México


title: Being an Important Artist: Creative Production and Artistic Branding on Social Media

contributor: Gadassik, Alla (Alla Gadassik) (thesis advisor)

subject:
TikTok (Electronic resource)
Social media
Labor
Identity
Artists
Celebrities

abstract:
The arts-based research in this thesis explores the status of creative labour and artistic identity on social media through the creation of branded Tik Tok accounts and multi-platform media content. The thesis addresses the platformization of artistic production on social media and investigates the ambivalent relationship between self-fashioned creative identity and corporate branding strategy, both within and without the arts academy.
The project is composed of films created to highlight the labour of social media practice within a competitive attention economy that positions the artist as performer and product of consumption. Some of the interventions involve characters who aspire to become famous (e.g. @garbahje), some directly reference well-known celebrities (e.g. @celebritydeepfake), and others create self-referential collaborations with local influencers that highlight the labour behind online branding (e.g. The Real Alex Kazemi and @puppyteethstudios). These projects are situated within lineages of post-internet aesthetics and camp, developed to create an ambiguous tone that reveals the complexity of presenting or performing artistic authenticity within a neoliberal platform economy.

abstract: Content creator

abstract: Creative labour


title: A Basket of Offerings: Propositional Tactics to Design with Emergence

contributor: Kozak, Laura (Laura Kozak) (thesis advisor)

contributor: Gillieson, Katherine (Katherine Gillieson) (thesis advisor)

format:
83 p.
electronic

subject:
Emergence (Philosophy)
Design

abstract:
As we continue to be confronted by multiple and overlapping systemic crises, it is imperative to respond to urgent needs while facilitating deeper healing and vision that supports future goals and possibilities. As such this project explores the role of design in facilitating this twofold imperative while focusing on design-as-inquiry work that is initiated to make sense of “wicked problems”. The underlying proposition of this project asserts that design-as-inquiry work can yield outcomes that are tethered to both immediate concerns and future possibilities when done in relational entanglement with emergent networks. Emergent networks are groups of collaborators that sit at the forefront of systemic challenges, continuously adapting to radical events by self-organizing into simple but multiple interactions of interdependence to navigate systemic barriers and dynamic conditions (Pendleton-Jullian et al., 2018).

This project explores collaborations with three distinct emergent networks to unpack a set of propositional tactics to facilitate relational entanglement with emergent networks in design-as-inquiry processes. For the purpose of this project, relational entanglement is viewed as the convergence and blurring of contextual, value-based and practice-based boundaries between designers and emergent networks to manifest deeply entangled inquiry methodologies and outcomes. Such methodologies and outcomes reflect the perspectives and experiences of inquiry partners while implicating the designer in the process by fostering a sense of responsibility and commitment to ongoing relationships. Through project research, it was observed that inquiry methodologies that grew out of different relational collaborations, were further getting entangled in practice, cultivating a dynamic and generative evolution and unfolding of design approaches applied across different projects. I find that these entanglements of methodologies and approaches stemming from collaborations with emergent networks have further shaped my overall design practice to be more emergent. This includes being more contextual, limber and adaptive to respond to urgent concerns while effectively creating space to envision future possibilities through inquiry.  Like a basket woven from multiple strands of material, this continually unfolding design practice emerges from and reflects the underlying entanglement that gives the practice- the basket- its form and carrying capacity. The practice then acts as an offering- a manifestation of multiple entanglements- that designers bring to design spaces. As such the underlying proposition of this project is to redirect design work towards developing relational entanglements with emergent networks to support emergent work and be guided by emergence to better contend with dynamic and unpredictable conditions and crises.

abstract: Dialogic process

abstract: Emergent networks

abstract: Participatory design

abstract: Designing for complexity

abstract: Emergence

abstract: Designing for complex and dynamic systemic conditions

abstract: Design-as-inquiry

abstract: Relational entanglement


title: Wandering the gradient - Reflections on relational learning

contributor: Higuchi, Marcia (Marcia Higuchi) (author)

contributor: St. Pierre, Louise (Louise St. Pierre) (thesis advisor)

subject:
Relationism
Artistic collaboration
Critical pedagogy

abstract:
In this thesis, I describe my creative practice of designing a series of relational and collaborative engagements, as expressions of my love of critical pedagogical theory by Paulo Freire. I learned about the nuances of shared knowledge by feeling Freire’s theories through my body. I became aware that learning and teaching coexist in an ongoing process of consciousness. This consciousness is held in body and mind, and it is also held between beings we share this planet with.
During my research I realized that important moments of learning happen through relational practices. These include workshops, but also collaborative writing, auto-ethnography, braiding, storytelling and other conversations. These methods are not tightly defined or given specific form. In searching for a term that could encompass these, I came upon the gradient, as a descriptive and visual term that includes many different engagements, an amorphous undefined space that allows friction, growth and flourishing as we learn about ourselves in relation to others. Wandering the gradient as an action of openness, we discover a notion of emergence which most of the time is not linear or predictable.
I reflect about ways in which design can help people understand that we can learn collaboratively with all beings. I speculate that when we acknowledge this form of learning, we may start to shift to a more horizontal and interdependent alliance among all beings. This can influence our sense of interdependency, encourage us to question power structures we are embedded within, and commit to ecological flourishing.

abstract: Community of learning

abstract: Relational practices

abstract: Critical pedagogy

abstract: Shared knowledge

abstract: Collaboration

abstract: Interdependence

abstract: More-than-human relationships


title: How does a Menopausal body navigate a phallocentric world? (Menopause is the penultimate death in the many deaths of the female body)

format:
97 p.
electronic

subject:
Installations (Art)
Menopause
Institutional Critique (Art movement)

abstract: This research began with the body, however nobody (no-body) is the location where this practice presently exists. To be clear, this research is developed through symptoms that develop within a body and then exist outside of a body as material. Currently, these symptom-materials are formed by the conditions of Menopause. Formerly, these symptom-materials were determined by annals of failing fertility.

abstract: Phallocentrism

abstract: Materials

abstract: Institutional critique


title: Thesis support paper

contributor: Novak, Justin (Justin Novak) (thesis advisor)

format:
36 p.
electronic

subject:
Painting
Comic books, strips, etc.
Immigrant experience

abstract:
This thesis support paper is about the journey of my development in art and illustration during the MFA program. The paper includes an introduction of my identity and background that is influential to my artistic practice. The focus of my practice centers around my experience as a Chinese immigrant in the west and the idea of the co-existence of eastern and western culture, identity, and ideology.
I will introduce my artworks from the year 2016 to the most recent ones in chronological order to show how my works evolved over time. There will be an in-depth explanation about the techniques, creative intentions, and the concepts behind works, as well as a list of artists who inspired me visually and conceptually, and an analysis of their practice.


title: Decolonization and Reclamation: The Cultural Significance of Material Exploration

contributor: Tapwew, Onikamow (Onikamow Tapwew) (author)

contributor: Langlois, Justin (Justin Langlois) (thesis advisor)

contributor: L'Hirondelle Hill, Gabrielle (Gabrielle L'Hirondelle Hill) (thesis advisor)

format:
53 p.
electronic

subject:
Decolonization
Indigenous knowledge
Painting
Sculpture
Indigenous art

abstract:
My artistic practice as a Cree and Osage Two Spirit woman is rooted in an investigation of materials with cultural significance to my Indigenous tribes. Working with these materials
across my practice allows me to create painting and sculptural works that combine traditional and contemporary Indigenous art. In this thesis support document, I situate my research and practice within Indigenous art history, which has thrived despite the constant threat from colonial powers, and alongside Indigenous theorists and artists that opened up the way for me. Across my practice, I aim to explore Decolonization and the Reclamation of Indigenous sovereignty and traditions. I hope my work can contribute to other Indigenous artists and people on Turtle Island (The Americas), so that we can one day gain freedom from the shackles of colonialism.

abstract: Reclamation

abstract: Rawhide

abstract: Fringe


title: Inhabiting Time: Holding material time through performance

contributor: Gellman, Mimi (Mimi Gellman) (thesis advisor)

format:
44 p.
electronic

subject:
Time
Performance art
Slow cinema
Clay
Ritual

abstract:
The impulse at the center of my practice is simple: I am longing for time that stretches out. I do not wish to spend time, buy time, save time, kill time, keep time. I want to inhabit time. This paper is divided into four sections.

In Entanglement, I reflect on the capitalist time structures I grew up within, and how they inform my positionality and practice. I chart my encounters with Zenji Dogen and Carlo Rovelli’s writing, whose ideas challenged my assumptions about time, and compelled me to search for time’s expansive layers.

In Unravelling, I write about my material practice. It is through embodied observation of changing material processes that I first glimpse time that cannot be contained by the capitalist boundaries of hours and minutes. Here, I examine the elements and methods of a key durational performance – Maintenance in Progress.

In Threads, I explore three layers of time – earth time, saeculum time and ritual time – that I have discovered within my practice. In this section, I discuss the film, Laying Ground, which will be screened at my thesis exhibition.

Finally, in Weaving, I write about not knowing through a current project, Watering Cracks, and reflect on my expanded relationship with time.

I do not dive into detailed examinations of capitalist time in this paper, though I recognize my entanglement with it. I want to experience the qualities of time that arise from the earth’s cycles, from embodied rituals and from the life-spans of my durational works themselves. I do not want to define my work in opposition to commodified, linear time. As I have discovered through my practice, different times exist not in tidy binaries, but as complex layers within which we are enfolded.

abstract: Material

abstract: Process

abstract: Performance

abstract: Geological

abstract: Film

abstract: Impermanence


title: VULNERABILITY AS STRENGTH: CREATING SPACE FOR WOMEN’S MENTAL WELLBEING

contributor: Roberts, Kaitlyn (Kaitlyn Roberts) (author)

contributor: Koenig, Ingrid (Ingrid Koenig) (thesis advisor)

format:
58 p.
electronic

subject:
Installations (Art)
Photography
Autobiographies
Autobiographical memory in art
Feminism
Mental health
Self-care, Health

abstract:
In this thesis, I demonstrate how I map out my autobiographical experiences within my art practice to bring attention to the powerful capitalist and patriarchal structures that keep feminism, mental illness, and pain hidden. By using autotheory, I reflect on my life experiences and relate them to historical context and contemporary conditions to create a space that sheds light on the gendered body, trauma, and their stigmas.

We currently live in a world that is going through a care crisis—a crisis of compassion—where having a powerful status is prioritized over empathy and love. I have situated my art practice as a way to explore, reflect, and share my own lived experiences under power’s carelessness. Documenting my personal, physical, and emotional experiences to gather this data are essential to my studio practice and research.

As a woman who has been diagnosed with anxiety, depression, and suicidal ideation, I know first-hand, what this patriarchal and capitalist society thinks of mental illness. As a woman who has experienced trauma and pain, I know first-hand, how this patriarchal and capitalist society hides pain. As a woman, I know first-hand what this patriarchal and capitalist society thinks and expects of me. In short, this thesis is about my experiences, my journey, and my beliefs of the importance of talking about the things that are usually kept hidden from view.

This project aims to create a space for care and for self-care.

abstract: Autotheory

abstract: Autoethnography

abstract: Trauma


title: Care Through Play, Anywhere: Designing Solutions For Digital Play Therapy

contributor: Emily Carr University of Art and Design Graduate Studies (Degree granting institution)

contributor: Aitken, Jonathan (Jonathan Aitken) (thesis advisor)

format: p. electronic

subject:
Play therapy
Mental health
Therapist and patient
Pediatrics

abstract:
Since the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, many services and businesses have been transitioned online to avoid travel and exposure. A number of these timely adaptations started as a compromise, but are now expected to continue even after the pandemic is over. Telehealth and teletherapy were among the most prominent examples—as doctors, therapists, and counselors moved to deliver their services remotely. In the last week of March 2020, telehealth encounters in the United States increased by 154% compared to 2019 (Koonin et al., 2020, p. 1598).
As counseling sessions were made available from home, many saw the benefits of teletherapy, including increased accessibility, timeliness, convenience, continuity of care, and patients’ comfort of being in their own space. However, unlike conversation therapies, play therapies for children rely on the act of physical play and equipment such as toys and a sand tray. As a result, play therapists have been challenged in adapting to the current model of video-based teletherapy. Based on information gathered from the primary research with counselors and play therapists, most challenges are related to the reduced therapeutic quality due to the lack of support from technology, despite the amount of interest to include more digital tools in their practice.
To explore ways to solve these challenges,  the researcher analyzed the data from interview sessions with the therapists and generated a list of design principles. Following these established principles, an iterative approach was initiated and included brainstorming, system mapping, wireframing, and a series of digital prototypes. Multiple possibilities of digital play therapy were explored with active participation and feedback from the professionals.

abstract: Health care for children

abstract: Teletherapy

abstract: Digital transformation

abstract: Therapist