Cultural Studies

Centro Nacional de las Artes in Mexico City

kvd1 — Fri, 01 Feb 2019 19:24:25 +0000

Ana Ruiz Aguirre

The Centro Nacional de las Artes in Mexico City was designed by internationally renowned Mexican architect Luis Barragán. I visited this impressive architectural feat during my ongoing MITACS-funded trip to Mexico City, undertaken with the objective to access archival collections regarding exhibitions of Cuban visual art displayed in Mexico. The Centro Nacional houses not only arts schools, but also national archival collections and research centres. The exhibition files held in these collections are central to the development of my doctoral research project at Queen's, entitled "Twenty Years of Cultural Diplomacy: Cuban Visual Art Exhibitions in North America, 1989-2014."

Location of photograph:

Mexico City, Mexico

Submission Year:

2015-16

Hunter

kvd1 — Fri, 01 Feb 2019 19:09:04 +0000

Stéfy McKnight

This photograph is an image of a hunting camera used by rural landowners to protect their property from human and non-human trespassers. This photograph proves that citizens are repurposing surveillance technologies for their own security and usage. The research that contextualizes this photograph argues that CCTV cameras and contemporary surveillance practices have inspired citizens to use unique methods of surveillance for their own needs.

Location of photograph:

Markstay, Ontario

Submission Year:

2016-17

Research-Creation is?

kvd1 — Mon, 21 Jan 2019 15:24:26 +0000

Stéfy McKnight

14 steps to research-creation: 1. Create proposal/draft ideas 2. Read, research, write, and sketch 3. Apply for funding 4. Produce, fail, produce some more, make more mistakes, produce 5. Question your work’s value entirely 6. My creative research is important because… 7. Find confidence in the importance and value of your research and creative practice 8. Produce more 9. Thank your colleagues for their input, support, and for moving heavy objects with you 10. Install and exhibit 11. Write and reflect 12. Share with communities, friends, colleagues, and pets 13. Document/photograph exhibition for future inspiration 14. Create proposal/ draft ideas

Location of photograph:

Isabel Bader Centre for the Performing Arts, Queen's University

Submission Year:

2017-18

Coded, I Am

stratg — Tue, 02 Oct 2018 20:03:50 +0000

Stéfy McKnight

"Coded, I Am" is part of a larger research creation project that looks at preemptive surveillance strategies in North America. It is a self-portrait of an artist immersed in tattoo QR codes. The QR codes – when scanned – direct the viewer to Google Earth images of CSIS and NSA intelligence sites. The photograph not only shows an artist absorbed by her research, but it is a representation of how users rely on third party sites such as Google Earth in their everyday lives, regardless of the risk of data mining and surveillance. The codes shift the surveillance gaze by giving viewers the tools to look at the institutions that are normally doing the ‘surveilling’.

Location of photograph:

Kingston, Ontario

Prize name:

Shortlisted image

Submission Year:

2015-16