Re-Making The Mark

Authors

Zora Murff, University of Nebraska - LincolnFollow

First Advisor

Walker Pickering

Second Advisor

Dana Fritz

Third Advisor

Francisco Souto

Date of this Version

Spring 5-2018

Comments

A THESIS Presented to the Faculty of The Graduate College of the University of Nebraska In Partial Fulfillment of Requirements For the Degree of Master of Fine Arts, Major: Art, Under the Supervision of Professor Walker Pickering. Lincoln, Nebraska: May, 2018

Copyright (c) 2018 Zora J Murff

Abstract

Is there a difference between a Black body lynched in 1919 and the forced removal of a community through the construction of a freeway? Or a blighted landscape shaped through generations of segregationist legislation versus a Black life taken by police in 2018? With Re-Making The Mark, I produce a mixture imagery and history to prompt inquiry into not only how racial violence has been recorded through images, but how they can also become a subversive code to interrupt collective belief. I capitalize on photography’s capacity to reveal temporal layers, and my work reinterprets American narratives about power, race, and violence across time. I accomplish this by invoking the notion of the photographic archive and through dealing with the convergence of the physical and social landscape. Creating a collection of images, objects, and image-objects meant to be scrutinized together in both their historical and contemporary contexts, and provide a be`er understanding of systemic white supremacy and the resulting violence therein.