Three Minute Thesis

Thoughts from the swimming pool - where I do my best thinking (and keep forgetting how many lengths I've done!).  Coventry Uni runs a 3 minute thesis competition, which is really good for getting the nub of your research defined.  So here goes:

The Golden Circles - Why, How, What (answer in this order for good quality thinking that leads to original artwork; the other way round for artwork that reworks established thinking)

Valuing Women

Why: Women are valued differently to men in UK society.  The representation of people in galleries and museums gives a narrative about the values of a society to the viewer.  As an artist I look at these representations - and I find more male artists represented than women artists, and more men than women represented as artwork (except for men and women depicted unclothed, in which case women are a huge majority).  The media in museums and galleries tends to be that favoured by men - oil on canvas, sculpture, with fewer examples of materiality favoured by women - textiles, stitch, print, watercolour.

The values which underpin gallery selection criteria are usually described as universal values because they do not overtly preference men or women.  However, historically, most values that have been identified to support these choices, have been made by men, then applied to men, which means they are masculinist values, not universal.  These values (which have been validated on men), latterly have been applied to women, often resulting in a mismatch in how women are represented to a 21st century audience.

National Portrait Gallery Collections policy is symptomatic in its aims to address some shortcomings in its collections: targetting 20/21century artworks that representing women and BAME, that highlight achievement in fields of: sporting success, entertainment, science, the arts, business, politics, and intellectual life.  This definition of achievement appears to focus on notoriety, celebrity, status and money, and can be argued to be based on masculinist values.

How:  I intend to review and explore what values are seen by women in other women.  I shall select women known to me, who are prepared to be the subject of research into what they, and other women, value about them.  I shall conduct semi-structured interviews to identify values specific to individual women, who are not in the public eye - 'ordinary women'.  Then I shall collate results from different women to see whether patterns and trends appear in how women value women.

What:  I am a textile artist who hand stitches samplers.  Samplers are a traditional form of artwork, requiring skill, that are strongly associated with the education and values of women.  My samplers - abstract portraits - depict ordinary women who would rarely be exhibited in a gallery; use a traditional female media to tell a narrative; name these women, and celebrate these women's value to their society.  My samplers aim to gain a smile of recognition from the viewer as they identify the female values of their nearest and dearest, portrayed in a gallery.

3 minutes 15 seconds.

Let's see what my tutor makes of it!