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Covers: Activating Black Album Covers Through Photography, Moving Image and Live Performance

Version 2 2024-04-25, 13:13
Version 1 2024-04-24, 13:04
thesis
posted on 2024-04-25, 13:13 authored by Harold Offeh

This PhD by practice is the result of a series of investigations which have built into a body of work, collectively titled 'Covers'. For the purposes of the PhD examination I have chosen to focus on three iterations of this series which demonstrate different formats of presentation building on the same theme, namely photographs presented in a collective exhibition in New York, a live performance at MAC Birmingham and an installation including video at Nottingham New Art Exchange. Choosing to re-activate images first presented as album covers by funk, soul and dance performers from the 1970s and 80s this series fits into a broader enquiry that seeks to address points of encounter with historical artefacts and situations. 


Covers is the focus for this practice-based PhD submission which considers the project’s development from the first photographs in 2008 to its expansion to embrace other media following the start of the PhD programme in 2013. Through a process of re-enactment, that utilizes performance, duration and the body, this research investigation aims to critically interrogate representations of black identity by closely engaging with the visual compositional strategies and the performed poses held in selected album covers. As a performance artist, I have made work that utilises black album covers as a starting point to address issues of how black identity (my own and others) is constructed and understood. This work is contextualized in relation to similar practices of artists Sonia Boyce and Ming Wong. 


Throughout the thesis, I examine how the performance strategies used in ‘Covers’ and the project’s existence as a queer spectacle challenge the dominant racial and heteronormative expectations of images of black subjects in popular culture. ‘Covers’ further draws on histories and discourses of radical blackness and queer disidentifications to create a new spectacle that challenges dominant narratives of race, gender and sexuality.

History

Qualification name

  • PhD

Supervisor

Kiff Bamford, Simon Morris

Awarding Institution

Leeds Beckett University

Completion Date

2019-09-30

Qualification level

  • Doctoral

Language

  • eng

Publisher

Leeds Beckett University

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