Award details
Hollis Roberts
Department: Visual Arts
Faculty supervisor: Prof. Megan Dickie
Abstract
"My work explores themes of trust, consumerism, preconceived knowledge and family. It is meant to disrupt spaces that would otherwise seem mundane. I want to ask the viewer to reflect on their own notions of vulnerability, intimacy, and passive relationships with the objects that surround them. By removing the function of the objects, my work will prompt the viewer to have a dialogue with themselves about how to interact with the work and how it challenges their perceptions. I intend to focus my research on the connection between design and function. I am also inspired by discussion of objects and their relationship to the human body. I will analyze this through writings by theorists such as Jacques Derrida, Sarah Ahmed. With this research I will create a series of objects that will occupy a liminal space. The pieces will represent the familiar while simultaneously disrupting it. I will repurpose found objects and manipulate the form so that they resemble items found within the home but confuse the original form. This kind of disruption will evoke disorientation, and displacement, not only in the objects themselves but also in the viewer and how they occupy the space with these objects."
