Fabric as Spatial Metaphor

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2012-02
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Abstract
How is space conceived of? Where does spatiality reside? While some think space as a void, others think it as a product, still, others think it as a process of inhabiting location. Fabric as Spatial Metaphor is a studio-based research which investigates spatiality. It explored process and entity involving spatial subjectivization. The enquiry is made with the assumption that spatiality is embedded in the social fabric of life. Referencing thinkers such as Lacan, Kristeva, Lefebvre, Yi Fu Tuan and Rogoff, spatialization is understood here neither as static nor passive but as active where the human subject is interfaced with, penetrates or radicalizes an already named or emplaced location. In this research, the relationship between fabric and space is contextualized through an analysis of fabric and fibre works which are posited as analogues of space, spatiality and subjectivization. Works of Yinka Shonibare, El Anatsui, Shawn Major, Lucy Orta, Kosuke Tsumura and Lei Yan among others are examined and discussed in the context of spatial subjectivity and how it has been investigated artistically. A look is re-taken at everyday occurrences and situations; my Ghanaian and feminine social space and its content and what meaning could be made of the ordinary become my interrogated terrain. This should inform the way spatiality becomes encoded subjectively. Drawing an analogy between fabric and space, a body of works is raised to articulate this concept of spatial subjectivity. Using both conventional and non-conventional sculptural processes, the following conceptual works were created, installed and exhibited; Weaving the Woven, Warrior, Palace, In the nest1and 2, Security1and 2, Transparency, Dreaming Is A map, Inside Out and Seat of Life or Sweet Pain Space. These works express various aspects of the self that come to give form to particular spaces thereby complementing the argument that spatiality reside within subjectivity.
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A dissertation submitted to the School of Graduate Studies, Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology, in partial fulfillment of requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy (Sculpture).
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