Semester

Spring

Date of Graduation

2020

Document Type

Thesis

Degree Type

MFA

College

College of Creative Arts

Department

Printmaking

Committee Chair

Joseph Lupo

Committee Member

Jason Lee

Committee Member

Gerald Habarth

Committee Member

Joseph Galbreath

Abstract

This paper documents the research, personal motivations, and processes that make The Museum of Queer Curiosities (TMOQC). The installation, exhibited in the Paul Mesaros Gallery, uses the manipulation of traditional techniques in printmaking, sculpture, and craft, to create a space in which authority, labels, confusion, and compassion are discussed. Through the synthesis of familiar visual art installation techniques and museum display, the work attempts to provide a foothold for the viewer to navigate queerness and ephemeral identity. The body of work that occupies TMOQC creates the surreal simulation of a scientific museum, transforming the art gallery into a stage where the phenomenon of the viewer experiencing the work can translate as a metaphor for how we can engage with the unknown and misunderstood, and to encourage trust in people’s identities, even when the language used is completely alien to normative ways of thinking. Through the navigation of labels and artifacts ‘curated’ by TMOQC, this thesis exhibition intends to pose the questions: who has authority when describing one’s identity, and how is being queer understood in a society that reinforces a fixed sense of self? This paper examines the conceptual and artistic threads that both inspire and justify this work as a simulation of a strange museum, and examines the cultural norms that necessitate such an exhibit as TMOQC in the first place.

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