Dawn Whitehand: Visual Artist
PhD Thesis
Environmental Art Installation
This video is a walk through (as the viewer would experience it) of my PhD installation which consisted of sculptural ceramics installed in the natural environment at my property in Dunnstown, Victoria, Australia.
The research and subsequent installation was based within a feminist framework, supported by the theories of new physics and evolutionary psychology which purports recognition of universal symbols and universal connections.
Clay was used as an organic material to capture the innate connections and nuances that humans have to the environment.
Installation as an art method was used to create an environment which could act as a conduit to the viewer re-establishing their inborn understanding of their place in the universe.
My actual PhD can also be downloaded or read online at Academia.edu or at the University of Ballarat.
PhD Installation
My PhD installation comprised of organic sculptural ceramics that explored environmental issues through the use of organic and textured materials. Clay was utilised as a metaphor, in either its fired or unfired form, as it is ‘the skin of the earth’, and is therefore ideal to communicate the fragility and changeability of our environment. The installation is intended to be a conduit for the participant to reinvigorate their innate interdependence on the natural world.
This work by Dawn Whitehand is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License.