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Growing up with Death - a Visual Memoir City University of New York (CUNY) CUNY Academic Works All Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects 2-2018 Still Life: Growing Up with Death - A Visual Memoir Lindsey Roth-Rosen The Graduate Center, City University of New York How does access to this work benefit ou?y Let us know! More information about this work at: https://academicworks.cuny.edu/gc_etds/2486 Discover additional works at: https://academicworks.cuny.edu This work is made publicly available by the City University of New York (CUNY). Contact: [email protected] STILL LIFE GROWING UP WITH DEATH A VISUAL MEMOIR by LINDSEY ROTH-ROSEN A master’s capstone submitted to the Graduate Faculty in Liberal Studies in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts, The City University of New York 2018 © 2018 LINDSEY ROTH-ROSEN All Rights Reserved ii STILL LIFE Growing Up with Death A Visual Memoir by Lindsey Roth-Rosen This manuscript has been read and accepted for the Graduate Faculty in Liberal Studies in satisfaction of the capstone project requirement for the degree of Master of Arts. Date Carrie Hintz Capstone Project Advisor Date Elizabeth Macaulay-Lewis Acting Executive Officer THE CITY UNIVERSITY OF NEW YORK iii ABSTRACT STILL LIFE Growing Up with Death A Visual Memoir by Lindsey Roth-Rosen Advisor: Carrie Hintz This capstone is a multidimensional visual narrative project that incorporates heuristic methodology to illustrate complicated grief that emerged from early childhood loss. The memoir’s intention is to exemplify grief as a complex and mutable composite response to the death of my mother. One objective of this capstone is to understand melancholy, commonly associated with mental illness or symptomatic of depression, as an aesthetic emotion as well as a conduit for philosophical reflection. I use non-verbal approaches to the genre of a memoir by incorporating my photography to epitomize art as a powerful means to comprehend the totality of loss: as visual evidence. I use text in an allusive rather than discursive way, thereby shifting perceptions of loss, grief and melancholy on to the viewer. In this way, the project portrays loss as an elegiac honoring of the deceased while also enacting recovery for the bereaved. I ask the viewer to think about the photograph contrarily, paying particular attention to time. The photograph is not just an image but offers temporal shifts; the past is the viewer’s present and the present is the subject’s future. This capstone project envisions autobiographical art as articulating the intricacies of profound loss, and that artistic narratives have a place within scholarship. I hope that my visual memoir offers insight into life writing, thanatology studies, and children’s resourceful engagement with the totality of death. The paper and project delineates the fluidity of loss and posits grief as a gift that allows for profound self-expression and the ability to share that knowledge with others. This capstone is digitalized on the internet. The completed memoir project is hosted at https://lbr2000.wixsite.com/rothrosencapstone iv Acknowledgements I would like to thank my advisor Carrie Hintz, not only for guidance and expertise for this capstone project, but also for introducing me to the magic and splendor of children’s literature. v Dedication I dedicate this capstone to the mothers who exist in the void of absence and to the adult children who wear their grief with grace. Figure 1 Lost Sorrow prepares you for joy. It violently sweeps everything out of your house, so that new joy can find space to enter. It shakes the yellow leaves from the bough of your heart, so that fresh, green leaves can grow in their place. It pulls up the rotten roots, so that new roots hidden beneath have room to grow. Whatever sorrow shakes from your heart, far better things will take their place. – Rumi Time it was, and what a time it was, it was A time of innocence, A time of confidences Long ago, it must be, I have a photograph Preserve your memories; They're all that's left you – "Bookends" Simon & Garfunkel vi TABLE OF CONTENTS Page Acknowledgements ....................................................................................................................................... v Dedication .................................................................................................................................................... vi TABLE OF CONTENTS ............................................................................................................................... vii List of Figures .............................................................................................................................................. viii CONCEPT ..................................................................................................................................................... 1 The Curse.................................................................................................................................................. 1 A Star is Born ............................................................................................................................................ 3 The Intersection of Photography, Mother Loss and Memoir ..................................................................... 4 Petrified in Amber ...................................................................................................................................... 7 No Memory, New Mother .......................................................................................................................... 8 Understanding Grief, Depression, Melancholy ......................................................................................... 9 Grief Spectrum ........................................................................................................................................ 10 To Cope or Not to Cope .......................................................................................................................... 10 Memoirs & Myths .................................................................................................................................... 11 Into the Sorrow Comes Solace ............................................................................................................... 13 Absence as Presence ............................................................................................................................. 14 The Pathos of Photography .................................................................................................................... 14 Grief as Catalyst ...................................................................................................................................... 18 COURSEWORK .......................................................................................................................................... 21 Courses Through The Lens of Grief ....................................................................................................... 21 METHODOLOGY ........................................................................................................................................ 25 Interactive Memoir ................................................................................................................................... 25 LIMITATIONS .............................................................................................................................................. 27 CONCLUSION ............................................................................................................................................ 28 Two things salvaged: A Forensic Find .................................................................................................... 30 FUTURE CONSIDERATIONS: ................................................................................................................... 31 Saudade: A Selection of my Work: ......................................................................................................... 32 Grief Becomes Her: Text-Portrait Series ................................................................................................ 47 APPENDIX .................................................................................................................................................. 50 WORKS CITED/BIBLIOGRAPHY ............................................................................................................... 52 vii List of Figures Figure 1 Lost ................................................................................................................................................ vi Figure 2 Once Was ..................................................................................................................................... 15 Figure 3 Death Comes To An Umbrella ...................................................................................................... 16 Figure 4 Salvaged from my mother’s wallet: A shopping list. ..................................................................... 30 Figure 5 Salvaged from my baby book: a note from my mother to my future self. ..................................... 30 Figure 6 Leaves in Rapture ......................................................................................................................... 32 Figure 7 Elegy for a Dress .........................................................................................................................
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