CEU Electronic Theses and Dissertations, 2024
| Author | Antonova, Natalya |
|---|---|
| Title | Crafting Freedom and Autonomy in Late Capitalism: Toward an Entangled History of Craft / Art Labour and Feminist Historical Consciousness in the Culture Industry of Russia (1994-2019) |
| Summary | Craft labour is essential to the operation of the culture industry in late capitalism: it creates fertile environments for artists and entrepreneurs alike, manufactures unique cultural goods, sustains economies and publics, helps to advance careers in cultural and creative sectors. However, craft labour can be invisible, not least due to the persisting division of creative work between the domains of the visual arts and handicrafts. Such contradictory disposition calls for a closer consideration of the historical consciousness of contemporary craft vis-à-vis the organization creative work in the culture industry, particularly in Russia where the professionalisation of the visual arts scene in St Petersburg since the mid-1990s had been strongly associated with a heterodoxȁ 4;feminist 14;form of consciousness mediated through the craft techniques of tailoring and needlework. This thesis—born out of a 6-month field research in St Petersburg, Moscow, and Kyiv in 2018-2019—focuses on three projects run by two generations of artists / crafters emerging in the St Petersburg cultural scene. The Shop of Travelling Things (St Petersburg, 1994-2000) and the Factory of Found Clothes (St Petersburg, 1995-2014)—Generation X. The Seamstresses (St Petersburg, Kyiv, 2015-present)&# x2014;Millennia ls. The theoretical potential of the concept of craft / art labour, in this context, affords an analysis of the question of freedom and autonomy in creative labour and an exploration of feminist historical consciousness in the culture industry / visual art sector since the mid-1990s. Toward this goal, the thesis singles out four assumptions / myths prevalent in the discourse of contemporary craft—materiality, counter-modernization, agentification, and non-alienation (Chapter 1); these assumptions are problematised from the perspective of four conceptual themes around craft / art—object (Chapter 3), temporality (Chapter 4), politicisation (Chapter 5), and craft public (Chapter 6). The thesis argues that the engagement of craft labour with the visual arts sector since the mid-1990s prepared the ground for the professionalisation of craft as an artistic occupation and politicised the craft public. The mythological discourse of craft / art foreshadowed and intensified the aspiration for freedom by the practitioners and their public, however—from within the existing arrangement of production in the culture industry—it afforded an articulation of freedom as a form of autonomy either from the repressive state ideology, or within the sector of visual arts and the economy of feminist merchandise. The thesis concludes that the consensual qualification of the feminist historical consciousness as heterodox, epitomised by the three projects, is tenable in as much as it situates itself within the paradigm of romantic femininity. |
| Supervisor | Erzsébet Barát |
| Department | Gender Studies PhD |
| Full text | https://www.etd.ceu.edu/2024/antonova_natalya.pdf |
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