Objecting: Sculpture as Counter Evidence

Gittner, J. (2025) Objecting: Sculpture as Counter Evidence. PhD thesis, University of Reading. doi: 10.48683/1926.00128598

Abstract/Summary

This research examines how data representations of social, economic, and political realities sustain systemic power imbalances in today’s contested politics of space and explores how socially engaged sculptural art practice can challenge representational norms to support resistance. While the political influence of supposedly objective data representations used in social housing resident consultations is well-documented, alternative forms of visualization that contest spatial injustices remain underexplored in socially engaged art. The thesis investigates the transformative potential for sculptural art practice in this area through three core strands of research: 1) evaluating existing artistic protest and data representation methods; 2) analysing current data practices in resident consultations; and 3) developing and testing alternative, sculptural data representations during a resident-led campaign against the demolition of St. Raphael’s social housing estate in NW London between 2019 and 2022 as a case study. The research highlights how socially engaged art practice is instrumentalised in public consultation processes, emphasising the need for an approach to art making that resists expectations of usefulness. An examination of the origins of the notion of objectivity in data representations and a study of their role in the case study consultation process reveal their aesthetic as a political strategy aimed at producing consensus. An analysis of counter evidence from the fields of art and visual advocacy highlights the need for a sculptural art practice to represent abstract data in tangible and intuitively accessible ways. Drawing on Benjamin, Mouffe and Rancière’s interpretations of art’s power to question and transform naturalised conventions of representation and to foster critical engagement, the thesis advocates for sculptural data representations to serve both discursive as well as confrontational functions. The observations from using sculptural data representations in the case study demonstrates that they offer new possibilities for challenging injustices in political decision-making and reaffirming socially engaged art’s capacity for critical agency.

Item Type	Thesis (PhD)
URI	https://centaur.reading.ac.uk/id/eprint/128598
Identification Number/DOI	10.48683/1926.00128598
Divisions	Arts, Humanities and Social Science > School of Arts and Communication Design > Art > Fine Art Arts, Humanities and Social Science > School of Arts and Communication Design > Typography & Graphic Communication
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