Browsing by Author "Draper, Jessica Lindiwe."

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Can’t you see it is mine? A consideration of the appropriation of space through the use of building materials (earth, clay and bricks) in art making.
(2022) Gush, David Hofmeyr.; Hall, Louise Gillian.; Draper, Jessica Lindiwe.
The purpose of this dissertation is to consider the extent to which the materiality of an artist’s art making materials can demonstrate an appropriation of the space in which the work is exhibited. The specific medium I have considered is the use of earth, clay and/or bricks. The dissertation concentrates on artworks that are exhibited as installations. The research into this question considers particularly in what ways might artists appropriate the space purely through the use of their choice of materials. Is the appropriation dependent only upon the nature of the work, or does the materiality of the medium constitute an overt appropriation of a gallery space in which the artwork is exhibited? The dissertation examines and explores these issues through the application of research-led methodology and the consequential influence and application of the results of the practice-led research on my own work. In the course of considering this influence, this dissertation explores specific works by Dineo Bopape, Antony Gormley’s Field Series, Walter de Maria’s New York Earth Room, Jorge Mendez Blake’s The Castle and Charles Simonds’ New York Dwellings, all of whom have used earth, clay and/or bricks in their work. The dissertation includes a series of photographs and a video of the installation entitled somewhere between heaven and hell which forms the practical offering of this project. I conclude that while the materials contribute to the environment, it is the overall effect (the environment and atmosphere) of the installation that creates an appropriation for the viewer.
Drawing from life: An autobiographical study in the creative work of Sheryl Thornton-Dibb le Tourneur with reference to selected female artists.
(2019) Thornton-Dibb le Tourneur, Sheryl Leigh.; Rall, Michelle Marie.; Draper, Jessica Lindiwe.
This practice-based research (PBR) project facilitates the use of creative studio practice as research together with theoretical research that culminate in an integrated exhibition and written dissertation for examination for the degree: Master of Art in Fine Art – Research (MAFA-R). This research adopts an heuristic approach to allow for flexibility, un pre-determined outcomes and tacit knowledge. Heuristics is suitable for autobiographical study as the subjective experience of the researcher is not only acknowledged but becomes the focus of the research. The phases and processes of heuristics become guides to the research process. The heuristic phases are also used in discussion of the processes and artworks of creative studio practice from a retrospective ‘bird’s eye’ view. The process becomes an immersive one in which the researcher embodies the research question and follows intuition, personal interest and emotion to engage with the materials of creative practice, to incubate inner knowledge and wait for emergent illumination. The theory of autobiography as influenced by feminism provides a theoretical framework that respects the influence of existential-phenomenological, psychoanalytic and spiritual frameworks and recognises the possibility of philosophical engagement. Autobiographical subjectivity, composed of experience, identity, memory, embodiment and agency, is implicitly and explicitly expressed in creative expression. Materiality and metaphor as embodied are also discussed as relating to autobiographical and creative expression in which varied themes emerge. The written and artistic work of Käthe Kollwitz and Wilma Cruise produced during midlife during which they experienced the loss of a loved one and psychological and/or spiritual existential crises is discussed in relation to the work and experience of personal loss and midlife of the author, Sheryl Thornton-Dibb le Tourneur. In this context the metaphors of birthing of self and creativity and nurturing creative seed within are discussed as is the equation of mother and artist. The use of figurative work and self-portraiture and the materials and processes of drawing and clay for artworks in 2D and 3D are considered in terms of their materiality and personal and implicit autobiographical expression in the quest for articulation of a personal and universal voice. Visual journaling of the process and curation of the artworks are recognised as significant in their contribution to the production and presentation of the creative studio practice and are unable to be reduced to or subsumed by the explication or exhibition.
Questioning heritage : colonial ideologies in contemporary museum practice.
(2008) Draper, Jessica Lindiwe.; Nyoni, Vulindlela Philani Elliot.
The research problem to be explored in this study is to what extent colonial ideologies continue to influence museum society and contemporary museum practices. The museological display of non-Western, and specifically African material cultures will be investigated. This study will enter into a dialogue with the construction of the ‘Other’, both in a colonial context and within museological paradigms. The evolutionary nature of culture and heritage will be emphasized, with particular prominence given to the dangers of exhibiting cultures as static and objectified. The Exhibitions Congo. The Colonial Era (Royal Museum of Central Africa, Tervuren) and Zulu heritage: the history and culture of the Zulu people (Msunduzi Museum, Pietermaritzburg) are used as case studies, as both displays raise questions of appropriation and the display of ‘Other’. These exhibitions are analysed and then contextualized within existing museological research. Current debates located in post-colonial discourse, notably those of Edward Said, are discussed in relation to the display of African material culture. In discussing museum exhibitions and readership, the writings of Hooper-Greenhill and Kaplan are considered. An understanding of heritage is generated in relation to the theories of Lowenthal. The paper concludes that by combining a ‘contrapuntal’ (Said) view of the histories surrounding an artefact, with the acknowledgment of the viewer’s lived experience in accordance with Reader-Response criticism, one would create a basis from which the viewer could begin to question and engage with cultural representations of the ‘Other’.
YUCK! (2020): a performative exploration of the white heterosexual self in South Africa as grotesque.
(2022) Mennigke, Francis Michael.; Hammerschlag, Tamantha Anne.; Draper, Jessica Lindiwe.
This dissertation discusses how I used performance to explore my white-heterosexual-male identity within the context of contemporary South Africa from a grotesque perspective. The research joins the academic conversation around performance as a method of inquiry into antiprejudicial scholarship. It explores my experience as a white-heterosexual-male in South Africa as normative and privileged. I use the word normative in relation to my identity and the structural norms reinforced by white supremacy in colonial and apartheid South Africa. The research hypothesises that performing my identity from a grotesque perspective could aid in disrupting how I perform racial and or gendered prejudice within a contemporary South African context. I argue that this theory might be applicable to both my artistic practice as well as my lived experience. I find practical value in the above hypothesis due to both my prior artistic practice and lived experience having demonstrated a lack of understanding with regards to the socio-cultural and political effects of my whiteness.