Ellen Suneson

The preliminary title of my PhD project is “PORTRAYING UNEASE". 

Based on the works of five artists: Laura Aguilar (US), T.J. Dedeaux Norris (US), Sands Murray-Wassink (NE), Jenny Grönvall (SE) and Xandra Ibarra (US), my thesis aim to explore certain problems and limitations embedded in feminist and queer feminist visual methodologies. By contemplating on how certain kinds of visual art become associated with radically, repair, opposition, political productivity and emancipatory qualities in the critical writing of many present day feminist and queer feminist visual scholars, this study explores visual theories wherein art, and particularly representations of structural discrimination, has a tendency to circulate as social goods, as what Sara Ahmed calls “happy objects,” - objects associated with positive value.

Rather than solely asking how feelings can be interpreted as diagnostic of structural discrimination or oppression, Ahmed asks us to explore “feelings of structure,” that is, that “feelings might be how structures get under our skin” (2010). Based on philosophical theories discussing themes of promises, hope, and happiness, this dissertation explores an alternative premise that, I argue, is frequently evident in representations of structural discrimination, albeit not as often discussed. My project is organised around a number of artworks that, I argue, portray how the hopes and promises of resistance and repair embedded in art can, in moments when this anticipation is experienced as futile or failed, become a source of self-blame, confusion, embarrassment, or despair.

I have been part of various projects concerning art and neuroscience - with focus both on the intersection between popular culture and neuroscience and on developing methods for art therapy aimed at Parkinson's patients.

I will visit the University of Southern California, Los Angeles, as a short-term scholar during Fall semester of 2018 and Spring semester of 2019.