Embracing Sculptural Ceramics: A Lived Experience of Touch in Art

ABSTRACT

Sculptural ceramic objects created by and for the body were made within the context of art-based research, in which theoretical explorations and studio practice were integrally interwoven. Studio explorations developed from theoretical knowledge gained from human physiology, and from the development of an understanding of the “lived experience” as expressed by Maurice Merleau-Ponty, through the experiences of the artist in making, and comments from visitors at exhibitions. The artworks challenge the visual hegemony of the art gallery by more fully engaging the body's sense of touch through the embrace. The sculptures, which were made by “casting hugs,” instinctively invite interaction, with soft curves that echo the human body, textures to visually entice individuals to touch, and a pleasurable weight that slows down responses. In public exhibition the artworks are enthusiastically embraced and held, broadening and articulating a tactile aesthetic for sculpture, and shifting focus from the sculptural objects themselves to one's physical and emotional experience of those objects.     

Unruly Voices in the Museum

ABSTRACT

This article addresses the use of audio recordings and oral memory for the critical engagement with colonial pasts in ethnographic museums by focusing on the traveling exhibition What We See, curated by Anette Hoffmann (2009). Specifically, it draws on Jeffrey Feldman's notion of colonial “contact points,” i.e. material traces of colonial encounter, to highlight the exhibition's ability to convey and critique the sensory experience of colonial contact. In What We See, this colonial contact consisted in an anthropometric project conducted in South-West Africa, today's Namibia, in 1931, resulting in an archive of anthropometric measurements and photographs, life-casts, and phonographic recordings. The exhibition proposed an innovative way of reworking this archive by staging an intricate interplay between sound and sight, thereby disrupting conventional ocularcentric forms of display. However, this multisensory approach provoked highly divergent reactions at its various exhibition venues. This article argues that the divergent reactions in Cape Town, South Africa, and Vienna, Austria, were due to different levels of what Ann Stoler describes as “colonial aphasia”—that is the context-dependent difficulty of addressing disquieting colonial pasts and its sensory dimensions.     

Boholano Olfaction

ABSTRACT

This article explores the domain of odors and olfaction on the island of Bohol, The Philippines. It recounts how my research interests were drawn to this domain by local preoccupations with smell as an aspect of everyday sociality, expressed in speech, modes of interaction and evaluation, and the discursive construction of ethnicities and other social kinds. Bohol's long and complex history and its place in the contemporary world entail a complex, differentiated sociocultural present, which is also reflected in the domain of odors and Boholanos' experiences thereof. Accordingly, the article makes a case for an approach to this domain that flexibly deploys basic ethnographic procedures and more formal techniques, specifically, domain and cultural consensus analysis. This dual methodology, it is argued, is sensitive to the differences between differentially positioned agents, but also demonstrates the degree of sharedness—of experience, categorical schemes, and historicity—that jointly characterize this domain. I use a partial set of results, pertaining to human body odors, to exemplify the approach and to depict a key dimension of Boholano social experience; one that speaks to the place of individuals in the local setting and to the position of the population generally in the commodified world of cosmetics.     

Incorporating the Period Eye

ABSTRACT

In recent years, museums have staged a number of “exhibitions of exhibitions.” These experiments in institutional, curatorial, and artistic revivalism have ranged from allusions to and quotations from past installations to full-scale re-enactments and reconstructions. The motivations of the curators and artists responsible for these diverse projects have included the desire to recuperate both famous and forgotten shows and also to reproduce past modalities of display and spectatorship, and thus build an archive of the immaterial through retrospective and performance practices. Some of the most interesting “exhibitions of exhibitions” have focused on the historical conditions and institutional conventions of spectatorship, with the objective of alerting the contemporary viewer to differences in the performativity of spectatorship, past and present. By evoking former practices of looking, walking, and touching, these exhibitions also remind us that techniques of the museum visitor are both embodied and acquired. They require the contemporary viewer to recalibrate their choreography of their looking and moving; put another way, they activate what Michael Baxandall termed the “period eye” in order to decode the visual effects of the exhibition and to relocate oneself in the position of the historical spectator. This article explores how a number of recent exhibitions have redrawn attention to the corporeality of museum visiting and viewing, as well as to the historical acquisition of competences and attitudes that we take for granted today.     

The market place as space in early modern England

The reinsertion of space into critical theory (Soja, LeFebvre) has stimulated some historians to reconsider space in its historical contexts. Exactly how one elucidates spatial organization-as represented space or as space produced by social action and practice-continues to exercise our minds. What we can be more certain about is that significant spaces existed which were, and were regarded by contemporaries, as public and open and that these spaces were sites of social action (but also, it should not be forgotten, of concealed activity too). In early modern England, market places constituted spaces of social and 'political' action and interaction, among which penance and punishment were important aspects. From office causes in ecclesiastical act books and from directions by the justices at quarter sessions, the social and 'political' employment of market places can be illuminated, particularly here in the archdeaconries of Colchester, Leicester, Nottingham and Essex, and from the sessions for Wiltshire and Somerset. Moreover, penance and punishment directed to market places reveal much about spatial relationships more widely, not least between administrative jurisdictions and people in spaces and between the urban and rural situation. In this way, we can begin to assemble the jigsaw which will illuminate further how space was formed by people in the past.     

Themes in Group Work with Lesbian and Gay Adolescents

ABSTRACT

Lesbian and gay youth often face severe isolation, growing up in an environment that is frequently ignorant of their unique needs and hostile toward them. Youth groups can serve a vital role in overcoming this isolation in addition to providing a safe space for working out the various problems surrounding the stigma of growing up gay. This article presents several themes in group work with lesbian and gay adolescents based on the author's experience as a group worker at a lesbian and gay youth project. Isolation, coming out, learning/re-learning, and initiation into a community are offered as four main themes which provide a foundation for understanding how to help lesbian and gay adolescents in groups.     

Nested or Networked? Future Directions for Ecological Systems Theory

Bronfenbrenner's ecological systems theory (EST) is among the most widely adopted theoretical frameworks for studying individuals in ecological contexts. In its traditional formulation, different levels of ecological systems are viewed as nested within one another. In this article, we use Simmel's notion of intersecting social circles and Bronfenbrenner's earlier writing on social networks to develop an alternative ‘networked’ model that instead views ecological systems as an overlapping arrangement of structures, each directly or indirectly connected to the others by the direct and indirect social interactions of their participants. We redefine each of the systems discussed by EST—micro, meso, exo, macro, and chrono—based on patterns of social interaction, and then illustrate how this alternative model might be applied in the classic context of the developing child. We conclude by discussing future directions for how the networked model of EST can be applied as a conceptual framework, arguing that this approach offers developmental researchers with a more precise and flexible way to think about ecological contexts. We also offer some initial suggestions for moving a networked EST model from theory to method.     

Touch Memories and the Influence of Gender

ABSTRACT

The way we perceive and experience touch is a first step in understanding how touch influences design and designers. Early memories of touch were explored among male and female design students taking classes at a large US metropolitan university. Male and female students were compared in terms of recall of what was touched and how it felt. Response categories of what was touched were similar between males and females, although contexts and exposures differed. Specific sensations were analyzed and categorized. Results pointed to the influence of a gender discourse within a culture that takes place in defining touch experiences more than differences arising from being male or female. Experiences of touch need to be expanded, made explicit, and understood in terms of design and creativity.     

Sensing the Natural in the Caribbean's Nature Island

ABSTRACT

This article uses research carried out in the Caribbean island of Dominica to consider how sensory experiences shape and influence people's perceptions of and relationships to nature. People's ideas of nature are not purely abstract; they are embodied and emplaced in geographical and social contexts. That is, people acquire understandings of nature through their experiences of the natural world, their engagements with flowers and birds, rivers and mountains, forests and vegetable gardens. On this basis, this article explores how sensory perception, in addition to being a way to apprehend the material reality of the natural environment, also plays a role in how people relate to and think about nature and the natural, based on their bodily experiences in a particular place.     

Building a Bicultural Bridge

ABSTRACT

The balancing act of living between two cultures can have a significant impact on the development of adolescent Latinas living in the United States. Many adolescent Latinas, particularly second generation, live with two sets of cultural values that are often in conflict with one another. This case study illustrates the importance of understanding the impact of acculturation on the individual and the family. Issues of identity, biculturalism, and bilingualism—specifically the phenomenon of language switching—are dismantled in this case study to gain deeper insight into the unique experience that second-generation Latinas undergo when negotiating two cultural orientations. These findings are important to consider when working with the Latino population as they represent one of the largest immigrant groups and the most rapidly growing group in the United States.     

Sneezing as a Form of Transaction between Active Body and Space

ABSTRACT

This article proposes the idea of sneezing as a manifestation of how an active body responds to its surrounding space. Sneezing is a natural body reflex against particular external stimuli. As a reflex action, sneezing is an instinctive transaction between an active body and space that occurs in a very natural way. Sneezing has the potential to become one way in which the human body serves as an instrument of spatial experience. The occurrence of sneezing in certain spaces serves as a natural indicator of the quality of the spatial environment. In particular the sneezing process demonstrates the latent capabilities of the human body to become a natural instrument for comprehending the spatial environment in which it exists. It can be regarded as a unique instrument for mapping spatial experience, and for differentiating between qualities of the spatial environment that are not merely visual. Through sneezing, the body's experiencing process in space is manifested as a transaction between the active body and its space.     

略论隆安在中国稻作文化中的地位

中国在世界稻作文化中的地位——水稻人工栽培的发明者;壮族在中国发明水稻人工种植中的地位——水稻人工栽培的最早发明者;隆安在壮族稻作文化中的地位——壮族稻作文化最集中、最灿烂的展示地,是壮族稻作文化的最大亮点。     

Family touch practices and learning experiences in the museum

ABSTRACT

This paper investigates how family museum visitors crafted learning through interaction with one another and the touch objects of an exhibition. Through a case study of seven families’ interaction, we show how families used touch to bring their interests and resources into dialogue with museum expectations and resources. Using a multimodal approach to analyze observational data, we generate a fine-grained account of differently configured family touch practices and ways of experiencing and knowing objects through their material, sensory tactile and affective qualities. We conclude by highlighting how our findings can inform the design of touch exhibits to support family learning, with attention to engagement, narrative creation, and embodied learning, and point to the paper’s methodological contribution to the analysis of visitor situated real-time interaction and learning in museums.     

Taste™

ABSTRACT

Developments in intellectual property law (and its interpretation) have opened the door for new claims to “ownership” in the domain of food. From the copyrighting of recipes to the trademarking of the “cylindrical configuration” of the Cinnabon cinnamon bun, food and its sensory properties appears to be increasingly governed, channeled, and transformed by commercial demands and concerns over competition. The unique role of color in this phenomenon has yet to be explored, and this article traces how food, color, and the law intersect—as well as the significance of the overlap. Specifically, the article examines the varied and complex ways in which color tints our edibles, probing attempts at color control and the sometimes contested nature of the process. This exploration of food and color will reveal the central and often fraught role of the law in bolstering—and also shaping—the semiotic, symbolic, and cultural meaning of food and hue.     

Walking the Museum – Performing the Museum

The article examines the performative aspects of the exhibition Olafur Eliasson: Riverbed (2014) in order to qualify and evaluate participatory modes of curating, doing research, and learning from art in museums. The article develops a theoretical approach to exhibitions as spaces for social and corporeal practices, where affectivity is enacted and social relations may be transformed. The article examines how the participatory design of Riverbed produces affects that are inherently performative, relational and political. The article analyses how the visitors are affected and moved by the exhibition to put into operation alternative ways of knowing, connecting and being together in museums.     

Disaster Research in Social Work

SUMMARY

Disaster research in social work has deep roots in the profession'S history of disaster relief, social work'S mission to create resources and make them accessible to people, and the profession'S service to vulnerable populations. Social workers have important and unique contributions to make to disaster research through their expertise in ecological approaches, prevention, stress and coping, and promoting change in micro and macro systems. Disaster research in social work borrows primarily from psychology and sociology, and is conducted in clinical, organizational, and community contexts. Further social work research on disaster promises improved theory, measurement, and practice in situations of collective Stress.     

Freedom in the making: the slaves of hacienda La Esperanza,Manatí, Puerto Rico,on the eve of abolition, 1868–76*

Abstract

The article studies the experience of slavery and its abolition on the sugar plantation La Esperanza, on the northern coastal plain of Puerto Rico. It offers a snapshot of La Esperanza's slave crew and presents insights into the affective relationships slaves established among themselves. Based on census material and court records, the article focuses on slave agency and on the opportunities rendered by the political and administrative context created in the colony after the triumph of liberalism in Spain. As the abolition of slavery approached, the local court restricted planters' traditional rights to administer punishment to their bondsmen, who they now began to see as potential free citizens. Slaves responded accordingly and played a decisive part in the process of change, thus showing understanding of the law and its possibilities. The events described here will help depict how ‘freedom’ took shape and how the administration of justice was becoming an exclusive prerogative of the state and its already dense network of intervention. The slaves were quick to observe and partake in the rigorous truth-establishing processes of meticulous investigation and witness interrogation characteristic of the practice of ordinary justice as it began to break into the plantation.     

Sounding Out Vision

ABSTRACT

The late-twentieth century development of a range of digital imaging technologies has led to claims that we are in the midst of a transformation of representation. This essay takes two such technologies—ultrasound and magnetic resonance imaging (MRI)—and considers how their extraordinary mediation of the invisible using radio waves, magnetic fields and sound waves confounds the terms of reference which have governed the way we think not only about images, but about visual perception itself.

The nineteenth-century visual technology of the stethoscope, and its synaesthetic fusion of sound and image, is posed as a way of thinking through medical imaging technologies' sonic and haptic picturing of a world beyond light. Hegel's aesthetics, and his consideration of sound as a more ideal medium than light, is also used to consider the ways in which ultrasound and MRI images mediate the products of sound—the depth, interiority and identity of a body—into the realm of vision and the image.     

Racial Contexts' Enduring Influence on Attitudes Toward Poverty*

Objective. This article's objective is to reply to Rodgers (2009) and to expand on the claim that living near poor African Americans influences Americans' views of poverty. Methods. It first presents additional analyses of the 2001 Poverty in America Survey demonstrating that respondents' racial contexts are consistent predictors of attitudes toward poverty. Other contextual variables are not. Results. The article then presents results from an exogenous shock—the post‐Katrina migration—to reinforce its claims. Despite the widespread understanding that the evacuees were not to blame for their situation, their arrival in Houston and Baton Rouge led to more individualistic explanations of poverty. Conclusion. This article concludes that even in unlikely cases, racial contexts influence attitudes toward poverty.