Electronic Theses and Dissertations (Masters)

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The Body Navigated Through Moments of Abstraction
(University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, 2023-03) Lopatecki, Diana; Williams, Joshua
My research explores how bodily trauma and the power dynamic between doctor and patient influences the relationship that an individual has with their body. I investigate bodily trauma such as physical injury or an accident that takes place and results in harm done to one’s body, as well as how a patient becomes vulnerable under the gaze of medical professionals. These moments of bodily trauma and the interactions between doctor and patient abstract one’s understanding of their physical body. By examining the writers and artists that work in this field of interest, as well as the globally recognised standard medical textbooks, my research and my practice aims to explore these moments of abjection that are experienced as well as the shift that takes place within an individual when they are altered from subject to object. I engage with these notions further in my practice through sculptural works/ installations that investigate the manner in which we look at and into the body, particularly with regards to physical injury.