Understanding mortality through the lens of contemporary photography: How can explorations of the abject and the uncanny in contemporary photography provoke experiences of embodiment and mortality?

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Authors

Locke, Cassey

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Degree

Master of Creative Practice

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Unitec Institute of Technology

Date

2022

Supervisors

Shaw, Yvonne
McDonald, Allan

Type

Masters Thesis

Ngā Upoko Tukutuku (Māori subject headings)

Keyword

photography
mortality and photgraphy
death and dying
Barthes, Roland
Freud, Sigmund (1856-1939)
Kristeva, Julia (1941-)
well being
autoethnobiographies

ANZSRC Field of Research Code (2020)

Citation

Locke, C. (2022). Understanding mortality through the lens of contemporary photography: How can explorations of the abject and the uncanny in contemporary photography provoke experiences of embodiment and mortality? (Unpublished document submitted in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Creative Practice). Unitec Institute of Technology. https://hdl.handle.net/10652/5731

Abstract

This essay explores how contemporary photography can provoke an embodied experience in an audience to help initiate the contemplation of mortality. Emerging research and a growing ‘death positive’ movement proposes that death awareness can contribute to improved wellbeing (Society for Personality and Social Psychology, 2012). Through practice-based research and ethnographic methods, I investigate how the photographic image might play a part in connecting its viewers to mortality. The theoretical framework for this research is influenced by Roland Barthes, who claimed that every photograph is a representation of death. The research is also influenced by Sigmund Freud’s concept of the uncanny and Julia Kristeva’s writings on abjection.

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