Analysing Public Art and Geography The world is ge Essays

Analysing Public Art and Geography The world is getting more and more visual, and increasingly meanings are communicated through visuals ( HYPERLINK https://www.ukessays.com/essays/arts/analysing-public-art-geography-8327.php \l _ENREF_18 Rose, 2001 ). It is the aim of this research proposal to outline the final year project that is going to focus on interdisciplinary themes of space, art and gender. It will demonstrate how human geography engages with visual art, and how the research linking the two has expanded over the past few decades. It will show the issues that one may be presented with when researching art. An explanation will be given of how gender and body are viewed in geography. Geography and visual art Geography is recognised as a very visual discipline ( HYPERLINK https://www.ukessays.com/essays/arts/analysing-public-art-geography-8327.php \l _ENREF_5 Driver, 2003 ; HYPERLINK https://www.ukessays.com/essays/arts/anal ysing-public-art-geography-8327.php \l _ENREF_20 Tolia-Kelly, 2012 ), that extensively engages with our vision ( HYPERLINK https://www.ukessays.com/essays/arts/analysing-public-art-geography-8327.php \l _ENREF_15 Roberts, 2012 ), and geographers have long been using various types of visual imagery and objects in their work ( HYPERLINK https://www.ukessays.com/essays/arts/analysing-public-art-geography-8327.php \l _ENREF_6 Garrett, 2011 ; HYPERLINK https://www.ukessays.com/essays/arts/analysing-public-art-geography-8327.php \l _ENREF_19 Rose, 2003 ). Over the past decades, namely since the cultural turn, there has been greater interest in potential links between visual arts and geography ( HYPERLINK https://www.ukessays.com/essays/arts/analysing-public-art-geography-8327.php \l _ENREF_18 Rose, 2001 ). During this time the field of research has expanded from looking at landscape paintings from earlier centuries, to analy sing broader spectrum of artistic mediums, both digital and analogue ( HYPERLINK https://www.ukessays.com/essays/arts/analysing-public-art-geography-8327.php \l _ENREF_8 Hawkins, 2012 ). It is understood that everyday images and objects that we see are not meaningless and static things, but are imbued with meanings that affect our behaviour and interaction with the world ( HYPERLINK https://www.ukessays.com/essays/arts/analysing-public-art-geography-8327.php \l _ENREF_7 Hall, 1997 ). Art in public space The term art' itself is an extremely broad concept, and there are many sub-disciplines in art that can be used to narrow down the research. This particular research is going to be focused on art in urban space. Nowadays many urban spaces are rich with artworks which are done in various mediums, and by utilising various methods. Arguably the traditional form of art in public space is public art. Public art commonly is defined as "either perman ent or temporary artworks, including social and contextual art practices which are commissioned for openly accessible locations, that is, outside conventional settings such as museums and galleries ( HYPERLINK https://www.ukessays.com/essays/arts/analysing-public-art-geography-8327.php \l _ENREF_22 Zebracki, 2013:303 )." An artwork may have an intended meaning, a set of ideas or ideals that its author wants the world to receive, and a meaning that is created by the audience upon its consumption ( HYPERLINK https://www.ukessays.com/essays/arts/analysing-public-art-geography-8327.php \l _ENREF_1 Baldwin et al., 1999 ). What makes it hard to predict how public art will be consumed, are the diverse publics or audiences that encounter it. A piece of art may be aimed at general public, but when different social groups read it , the diversity of meanings that it actually produces have to be taken into account. Therefore, in this sense the study of public art becomes a study of "the reception of art by [its] publics ( HYPERLINK https://www.ukessays.com/essays/arts/analysing-public-art-geography-8327.php \l _ENREF_12 Miles, 1997:85 )." Geography, body and gender Geographers see body as a space. Many quote Rich when he talks about the body as "the geography closest in ( HYPERLINK https://www.ukessays.com/essays/arts/analysing-public-art-geography-8327.php \l _ENREF_14 1986:212 )." It is the border between the inner world and the outer world. It is a space that is sexed and gendered, where sex is a biological product and gender a social one ( HYPERLINK https://www.ukessays.com/essays/arts/analysing-public-art-geography-8327.php \l _ENREF_21 Valentine, 2001 ). However, more recent academic work blurs the lines between the two, arguing that there is evidence of cases where bodies do not abide by the traditional views of sex and gender ( HYPERLINK https://www.ukessays.com/essays/ arts/analysing-public-art-geography-8327.php \l _ENREF_4 Cream, 1995 ), and that both should be considered as social ( HYPERLINK https://www.ukessays.com/essays/arts/analysing-public-art-geography-8327.php \l _ENREF_21 Valentine, 2001 ). In social research gender is understood as "social, psychological or cultural differences between men and women ( HYPERLINK https://www.ukessays.com/essays/arts/analysing-public-art-geography-8327.php \l _ENREF_10 Knox and Pinch, 2010:235 )." Historically geographers have viewed differences in gender roles as socially constructed ( HYPERLINK https://www.ukessays.com/essays/arts/analysing-public-art-geography-8327.php \l _ENREF_3 Castree et al., 2013 ). Therefore, characteristics that constitute what