Date of Award
5-11-2020
Degree Type
Closed Thesis
Degree Name
Master of Fine Arts (MFA)
Department
Art and Design
First Advisor
Darien Arikoski-Johnson
Second Advisor
Christina A. West
Third Advisor
Jeremy Bolen
Abstract
Hiraeth Never Fades is a ceramic-based installation focused on my experience as a product of the closed domestic adoption industry in the United States. Using self-portrait busts, vessels, daisies, and stacked paper, I explore the unnerving struggle to find my family as an adult and the psychological aftershocks of a newly reclaimed original identity. The installation examines the personal impact of accessing a hidden past, the struggle to reclaim original identity, and the journey to secure personal historicity as someone who started life as an orphan and was subsequently adopted. I was given the right to try to find my family after 30 years of legal restriction. In my thesis work I explore ideas of secretly wondering who my family was while being isolated from them; coming to terms with tragedy and loss upon reunion; and learning to connect with the remaining family I was so lucky to find.
DOI
https://doi.org/10.57709/17529990
Recommended Citation
Kuratnick, Jeffrey R., "Hiraeth Never Fades." Thesis, Georgia State University, 2020.
doi: https://doi.org/10.57709/17529990
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