Date of Award

Summer 8-16-2024

Level of Access Assigned by Author

Open-Access Thesis

Degree Name

Master of Fine Arts (MFA)

Department

Intermedia

Advisor

N.B.Aldrich

Second Committee Member

Susan Smith

Third Committee Member

Heather M. Falconer

Additional Committee Members

Trisha Smith

Abstract

This hybridized manifesto examines the artist's role in bearing witness to change within the built environment; inquiring how an artist might work towards altering dominant, pathological systems of power. The following manuscript outlines the artistic research pursued through constructing a short-term residency at a demolition site, 127 Hammond St Bangor Maine 04401. From January 12th to May 12th, Merrilee Schoen bore witness to the demolition of this site known to locals as “the old YMCA”. Through a self-directed, public and communal artistic research process called “site-work” she worked to understand systems of pathological power, the redistribution of material resources, and public experiences of change. The following manifesto was created by combining the tradition of a manifesto as a practice of principled, public declaration with the practice of Intermedia; a multimodal research-based form of art making.

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