Sites of Passage: Art as Action in Egypt and the US-- Creating an Autoethnography Through Performance Writing, Revolution, and Social Practice

As a performance artist and arts activist I present my research project to the audience in performative writing, a postmodern research style that advocates the integration of the artist/researcher identity. In the summer of 2010, I left for Egypt to teach a performance and installation art workshop at Artist Residency Egypt, the first step of the Firefly Tunnels Project, a virtual and tangible exchange between artists in the United States and Egypt. This venture began with the awareness that the 10th anniversary of 9/11 was approaching. What I could not have foreseen were the other world events that would have a direct impact on the project: Arab Spring and the Egyptian revolution, the Occupy Wall Street Movement in the United States, the execution of Osama Bin Laden, and presidential elections in both the United States and Egypt. Sites of Passage, the final exhibition, ran from September 9, 2011-February 14, 2012 (extended) at the Mattress Factory Museum, one of the only installation art museums of its kind. The exhibit included site-specific works, curatorial tours, discussion panels, workshops, community outreach, and a performance series. I curated all of the artists into the three workshops held in Egypt and the United States, which were compulsory to the exchange process. This document is a performance ethnography that includes an auto-ethnography providing thick description of the experiences and events of this bicultural journey. There are eight videos in mv4 format, plus images to help give dimension to the work. Theoretical dispositions will also be performed throughout the document. The electronic version of this Dissertation is at OhioLink ETD Center, www.ohiolink.edu/etd.

Name thesis:degree_name

Ph.D.

Level thesis:degree_level

doctoral

Discipline thesis:degree_discipline

Leadership and Change

Grantor dc:publisher

Antioch University

Year dc:date

2013

Author dc:creator

• La Follette, Tavia

Contributors dc:contributor

• Kenny, Carolyn

• Aesthetics
• Communication
• Cultural Anthropology
• Design
• Ecology
• Educational Theory
• Education Philosophy
• Epistemology
• Experiments
• Fine Arts
• International Relations
• Language
• Linguistics
• Middle Eastern Studies
• Metaphysics
• Multicultural Education
• Multimedia Communications
• Museums
• Peace Studies
• Pedagogy
• Performing Arts
• Spirituality
• Teaching
• Technical Communication
• Theater
• Theater Studies
• Egypt
• Revolution
• Occupy Movement
• Auto-ethnography
• Installation Art
• Performance Art
• Site Specific
• Theatre
• Theatre Studies
• Social Practice
• Social Justice
• Performance Writing
• Art Exchange
• Arab Spring
• 911
• virtual
• website
• digital
• mother

Statement dc:rights

• unrestricted
• This thesis or dissertation is protected by copyright: all rights reserved. It may not be copied or redistributed beyond the terms of applicable copyright laws.

Language dc:language

English

Repository record dc:identifier

http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=antioch1365450771

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:etd.ohiolink.edu:antioch1365450771