Alexander, Natasha Rhiannon (2025) Doris Salcedo’s Work of Mourning. Masters thesis, York St John University.

Preview

Text (Masters by Research thesis) Doris Salcedos Work of Mourning.pdf - Published Version Available under License Creative Commons Attribution. Download (2MB) | Preview

Abstract

The aim of this thesis is to consider Doris Salcedo’s artistic work alongside Jacques Derrida’s writing to position her artistic practice as a work of mourning with a continuous temporality that exists within and beyond predetermined narratives and contexts. I use Hubert Damisch’s and Mieke Bal’s analysis of the artwork as a theoretical object to establish the material methods Salcedo deploys to frame viewers as witnesses to and participants in a work that is always in becoming. Critique of individual works, including A Flor de Piel (2011-2012) and the Untitled series (1989-), is informed by a systematic review of the current literature around her practice. I position Salcedo’s work in dialogue with Elaine Scarry’s writing to consider the inadequacies of both written and visual language in portraying violence. Consequently, the substitution of the found object for the body in Salcedo’s work is established as a means to infer grief at the hands of violence. This is done so with recognition of the necessity of representing and externalising the absence of the other who is lost which, paradoxically, remains also an impossible task. I examine the implications of viewing Salcedo’s works as counter-monuments which instigate a prolonged engagement with collective mourning as a method to counteract the cyclical nature of violence, fuelled by indifference to the suffering of the other. By bringing attention to Judith Butler’s writing, I discuss a politics of mourning that relies on its inability to be comprehended, thus instigating a continual reckoning with the profoundly human vulnerability of oneself to the other. Salcedo’s practice, defined by themes of impossibility and deferral, is presented as a vehicle to engage with the lasting impact of incomprehensible violence in Colombia, which is currently at a crossroads in its history

Item Type:	Thesis (Masters)
Status:	Published
Subjects:	N Fine Arts > NX Arts in general
School/Department:	School of the Arts
URI:	https://ray.yorksj.ac.uk/id/eprint/12776

University Staff: Request a correction | RaY Editors: Update this record