Master of Fine Arts submission

The nature of human experience and the acquisition of knowledge through that experience is not just a process of the mind, but is also that of the body. We perceive the world through the relationship of mind and body, transforming physical sensations into knowledge. This shift from the physical to the metaphysical is central to the concerns I wish to address in my work. In doing so I will attempt to develop a correspondence between internal structures (structures of consciousness, conventions of perception, systems of belief, as well as activities of thought and feeling) and external structures, those of physical experience in relation to architectural space. By doing so I will address the concept of the self and its relationship to the external world, therefore questioning the nature of reality. Through installation and architectural structures, I will attempt to explore the above concerns by using architectural space as a metaphor for the internal structures of the self.1 By using physical enclosures, I aim to heighten the awareness of how we perceive the spatial and temporal continuum of experience, and how the body is integral to this experience, expanding our perception of objects and space. Through the physicality of the sculptural form, I wish to address the notion of spatial presence in relation to memory. Primarily I will be dealing with body memory; that which alludes to memory that is intrinsic to the body; how we remember in and by and through the body (a felt memory). In dealing with the above, I aim to transform the viewer's understanding of space, physically, psychologically and aesthetically by dealing primarily with perceptual content - where the work addresses not just vision but the viewer's whole physical being. I therefore propose to continue working within the architectural enclosure as a means of expressing the human condition.