The Face Mask: A Sociological Approach to Uses and Representations of the Body in the Work of Helena Almeida and Jorge Molder
Author: Pereira, Anabela C., belacp@gmail.com
Department: CIES-IUL
University: ISCTE-Instituto Universitário de Lisboa, Portugal
Supervisor: Professor Dr. Graça Carapinheiro (PHD) and Idalina Conde (Assistant Professor)
Year of completion: 2013
Language of dissertation: Portuguese
Keywords:
Body
, Identity
, Representation
, Helena Almeida/Jorge
Areas of Research:
Body in the Social Sciences
, Arts
, Visual Sociology
Abstract
The purpose of this investigation was to study the uses and representations of the body in the work of Helena Almeida and Jorge Molder, in order to explain how the creators particularize themselves through identity and the body in their works. This dissertation specifically explores how the processes of construction of personal and professional identity, and identity of the work, are grounded in individual corporal condition, reconstructing also the narratives of the uniqueness and artistic recognition in both cases.
The data was based on an interpretative and discursive approach that involved visual and documentary techniques along with a qualitative analysis based in the various discourses that define these cases, including the reconstruction of artists’ curricular trajectories. This approach allowed for the interpretation of the use of the body in the work, at an individual level (underlying meanings), and the reconstruction of the visual and discursive sense of the work externally (legitimized and recognized meanings), offering a multidimensional perspective on these narratives, in which the body emerges as personal project for new forms of representation and identity.
