A counter-hegemonic craft? Exploring the potency of porcelain in an anticolonial art practice

反霸权工艺？

• 批准号: 2597431
• 金额: --
• 依托单位: University of Westminster
• 依托单位国家: 英国
• 项目类别: Studentship
• 财政年份: 2021
• 资助国家: 英国
• 起止时间: 2021 至 无数据
• 项目状态: 未结题
• 来源: https://gtr.ukri.org/projects?ref=studentship-2597431
• 关键词: counter; hegemonic; craft; Exploring; potency

This practice-based research project will look at the affective potential of colonial commodities, with a particular focus on porcelain, to challenge the consensus on the history and legacy of empire. It will engage this line of enquiry from an aesthetic, philosophical, political and sociological perspective. My art practice, rooted in craft processes and the conceptual use of materials, will be both a testbed and exposé of the academic research, integral to its development and dissemination.I will explore the potency of porcelain, a colonial commodity laden with symbolic value, as a sculptural material, and to what extent it could be used to counter the dominant hegemonic, but precariously fragile and white, view of colonial history. This line of research is timely, pertinent and urgent. Now, more than ever, UK society needs to engage with racism, and I am interested in exploring how artists can contribute to this. As Paul Gilroy emphasises, "neither race nor racism are the exclusive historical property of the minorities who are their primary victims". Dismantling white supremacy and exposing the whitewashing of imperial history is not the job of people of colour. White people must do the work and recognise that racism is very much a contemporary problem. My aim is that this research will contribute to an "unlearning of imperialism", as Ariella Azoulay puts it. Her Potential History will be a crucial guide in my efforts in this project to disengage from imperialism's ways of knowing. My personal interest in making work about colonial history stems from my extended family's rich, but sometimes contentious, mix of backgrounds - ancestors from both sides of the colonial slavery divide; vocal nostalgia for empire vying with bouyant radical blackness. The conceptual use of the raw materials of imperial trade has been at the heart of my art practice for over 10 years. My approach to making art with colonial commodities is deeply engrained with craft thinking and I intend to use this discipline to develop an intimate affinity with these raw materials. I would like to develop research I began for my Masters dissertation at Goldsmiths College that explored the agency and affect of engaging with 'vibrant' matter. Porcelain will be the main reference, but I want to apply craft processes to access the affective vibrancy of bagasse, cotton, cochineal, copper, indigo, rubber, tea, sugar and salt. This will form the basis of my investigation into the entanglements and politically resonant discourses that their history and characteristics generate.Fetishised as it is by privileged Western collectors and makers, porcelain has a fraught symbolism that has not been adequately critiqued in accounts of its history. Its associations with power and privilege are skated over by Edmund de Waal in The White Road. But perhaps its very whiteness, perceived purity and raw fractiousness can both embody and contest political whiteness, making it an apt material for an artistic exposé of the whitewashing of colonial history.

这个以实践为基础的研究项目将着眼于殖民商品的情感潜力，特别关注瓷器，以挑战对帝国历史和遗产的共识。它将从美学、哲学、政治和社会学的角度进行这一系列的研究。我的艺术实践植根于工艺过程和材料的概念性使用，既是学术研究的试验台，也是学术研究的延续，是学术研究发展和传播的组成部分。我将探索瓷器这种充满象征价值的殖民商品作为雕塑材料的潜力，以及它在多大程度上可以用来对抗占主导地位的霸权主义，但脆弱的白色，殖民历史观。这一研究方向是及时的、针对性的和紧迫的。现在，英国社会比以往任何时候都更需要参与种族主义，我有兴趣探索艺术家如何为此做出贡献。正如保罗·吉尔罗伊强调的那样，“种族和种族主义都不是少数民族的专属历史财产，他们是主要受害者”。拆除白色至上和揭露帝国历史的粉饰不是有色人种的工作。白色人必须做这项工作，并认识到种族主义在很大程度上是一个当代问题。我的目标是，这项研究将有助于“忘记帝国主义”，正如Ariella Azoulay所说的那样。她的潜在历史将是我在这个项目中努力摆脱帝国主义认识方式的关键指南。我个人对殖民历史的兴趣源于我的大家庭的丰富，但有时有争议的，背景的混合-祖先来自殖民奴隶制分裂的双方;对帝国的口头怀旧与激进的黑人竞争。对帝国贸易原材料的概念性使用是我10多年来艺术实践的核心。我用殖民地商品制作艺术品的方法深深植根于工艺思维，我打算用这门学科来发展与这些原材料的亲密关系。我想发展我在金史密斯学院的硕士论文中开始的研究，探索与“充满活力”的物质接触的机构和影响。瓷器将是主要的参考，但我想应用工艺过程来获得甘蔗渣，棉花，胭脂虫，铜，靛蓝，橡胶，茶，糖和盐的情感活力。这将成为我研究它们的历史和特征所产生的纠结和政治共鸣话语的基础。尽管受到西方特权收藏家和制造商的迷恋，瓷器具有令人担忧的象征意义，但在其历史记录中没有得到充分的批评。埃德蒙德·瓦尔在《白色之路》中对它与权力和特权的联系轻描淡写。但也许它的白色，感知的纯洁和原始的暴躁既可以体现和竞争的政治白色，使它成为一个合适的材料，为艺术家粉饰殖民历史。