Date of Award

Fall 2018

Thesis Type

Open Access

Degree Name

Master of Liberal Studies

Advisor(s)

Rachel Simmons

Second Advisor

Martha Cheng

Abstract

This essay offers a critical analysis of my creative thesis, Reimagining the Narrative: A Contemporary Creative Collection of Interracial Perspective, which consists of five fabric art scrolls, illustrating contemporary narrative views about interracial relations. I present such information to demonstrate the need to retell history from a visual interracial perspective, so that it might be seen through a new lens. In this critical essay, I argue that while historical context and documentation records history and provides insight into historical narratives, contemporary views within writing and art persist in their capacity to not only offer new points of view, but also propel the mind to reimagine the narrative which has been told throughout history. This analysis offers a unique and relevant perspective into race relations during a time when racism dwells at the forefront of conversation, and the interracial union continues to present unspoken difficulties about being human in a racial society which is often more about race than about being human. I aim to demonstrate that the retelling of history through a new lens created by contemporary writers and artists, including myself, remains critical in provoking valuable conversation needed to fracture the silence behind history, and break barriers between races. This critical essay not only argues for the necessary retelling of history through a reconstructed narrative, but also explains how the contemporary art of Reimagining the Narrative does this through creative writing and visual construction, including the process of its creation. Through this collection, the audience may interact with the new narrative through the agency of contemporary art and writing for the viewer to extend their perspective outside the margins of the stories that have been told.

Rights Holder

Holly Jefferies

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