Browsing by Author "Chartrand, Eve"

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    The Saprotrophic Body
    (2019-08-28) Chartrand, Eve; Eiserman, Jennifer; Leblanc, Jean Rene; Goopy, Suzanne E.
    Through two years of extensive research creation, this paper investigates the nature of women’s negative body representations associated with ageing, including narratives of inclusiveness and visibility outside normative constructs. As part of an MFA, extensive literature reviews helped transform areas of interest into meaningful research questions. The literature included studies on ageism, embodiment, death rituals, material culture, thingness, medical gaze, regeneration, excess, the abject and the social dimension of participation (Bishop, 2006) in contemporary art. Research-creation included applying variations of Robert K. Yin’s case study research and applications. Existing literature and other artists’ works permeated all areas of creative case study research as Moustakas’ processes of heuristic inquiry (immersion, incubation, illumination, explication, and creative synthesis (Moustakas 1985) systematically unfolded. The six creative case studies resulted in a deeper understanding of the implications of current negative body definitions in middle-aged women’s lives to self-identity and agency. Applying a case study methodology to research creation provided a formal structure to an otherwise equivocal creative process in building a concrete path for problem-solving. Dissemination confirmed and informed the efficacy and relevance of artistic choices and established grounds for further research. This was mainly based on successful strategies retrieved from previous creative case studies that answered the initial research question. Artistic transformative encounters (Gynning 2016), conducted and presented in this paper, challenge the idea that ageing is intrinsically defined by disability, ontological decay, and death.