Thin place: An alternative approach to curatorial practice

Healy, Ciara

Abstract

The ideas proposed in this thesis emerged out of a practice based interdisciplinary curatorial research project titled Thin Place, which was installed at Oriel Myrddin, Carmarthen in early 2015. Fully funded by Arts Council Wales, the exhibition, education programme, publication and symposium aimed to dissolve boundaries that separate fields of knowledge and in so doing, attempted to create a metaphysical ‘thin place’ within the gallery. In ancient times it was believed that the delineation between worlds was more permeable in certain anomalous areas in a landscape; these areas were known as ‘thin places’ and were sometimes signified by burial mounds or standing stones. The five exhibiting artists and the many other contributors to the project produced work that was concerned with or responded to two particular locations: West Wales and the West of Ireland. These were locations where, it was believed, souls could easily enter Otherworlds. Building upon this notion of a ‘thin place’, this practice based doctoral project addresses the ways in which we value our relationship with Place, particularly in landscapes where animism was once a well established world-view, and where ambiguities in liminal spaces were embraced. By attending to these archaic ideas through contemporary curatorial practice, Thin Place questions current socio-political and socio-ecological paradigms and proposes new modes of ecological/environmental knowing through alternative forms of curating.

• Thesis Type: Thesis
• Publicly Available Date: Jun 7, 2019
• Keywords: curating, spirituality, place, animism, ecology, education
• Public URL: https://uwe-repository.worktribe.com/output/909166
• Award Date: Aug 4, 2016