| |
| author |
Avianna Miller
| | title |
On the Threshold: Rituals of Renewal in Jewish Space and "Crip Time" Through a Lens-Based Practice
| | abstract |
In this project, I investigate Jewish ritual through the lens of chronic illness, attending to spiritual
views on disability, healing, and the body. Working in a lens-based practice, I center Jewish
ideas of ritual as a mechanism for both spiritual renewal and a means to bring visibility to the
invisible within the ritual of making itself. To this end, I investigate Jewish cleansing rituals in
order to fully situate the historical and cultural place of these practices and their shifts into more
contemporary, intersectional contexts. My paper draws from philosopher Paul Ricœur's ideas on
"traces," investigating how artists can participate in a type of subversive documentation of illness
to create nonexploitative representation that produces meaning through absence and indirect
portrayals of the body. I make photography and video work within the space of my home,
documenting found and constructed moments in which light illuminates and shadows conceal,
framing a new, in-between space.
| | school |
The College of Liberal Arts, Drew University
| | degree |
B.A. (2023)
|
| advisor |
Dr. Rory Mulligan
|
| full text | AMiller.pdf |
| |
