Title:
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Bringing the war back home : the anti-war photomontages of Martha Rosler (1967-2008)
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This doctoral thesis investigates the question 'How and why does Martha Rosier, artist and
activist, bring the wars of Vietnam and Iraq back home time and again?' The aims of the
investigation are to consider the two series of Martha Rosier's photomontages entitled
"Bringing the War Home: House Beautiful" (1967 -1972) and "Bringing the War Home:
House Beautiful, New Series" (2004 - 2008). The aims of such a consideration include:
address of the photomontages themselves asthey relate to Rosier's particular development
of a critical and activist photomontage practice (as initially developed in her feminist
photomontage series "Beauty Knows No Pain: Body Beautiful" (1965 - 1974)); examination
of original source images appropriated by Rosier for the making of her works, citing their
original locations (work not undertaken previously by other scholars) and the events, scenes
and valences thereof within these original photographs; theoretical propositions for how
one can read the critical narratives and operative critiques embodied by Rosier's
photomontages; and a consideration of the meta-commentary instantiated by Rosier's
renewal of the anti-war photomontage series in light of 'the war on terror'.
Results achieved
This thesis has achieved a comprehensive overview of Martha Rosier's project as both artist
and activist to bring the American wars in Vietnam and Iraq back home to the USas a work
of anti-war activism, provoking a conversation with the population whose representatives in
government are pursuing these foreign adventures in their names. The thesis achieves
propositional readings ofthe theoretical workings of Rosier's images, alongside offering a
historical contextualisation of both Rosier's extra-artistic activism and of the events
depicted in her works which have not been recorded by other scholars. The researching and
recording of original source material appropriated by Rosier in the making of these
photomontages, again not recorded by other art historians elsewhere, along with the
relevance of the selected source images, has been achieved within this thesis. Furthermore,
this thesis has succeeded in postulating original theoretical appreciations of not only
Rosier's photomontages in both eras ofthe series, but also ofthe nature of and motivation
for her very act of renewal in the second stage ofthe series "Bringing the War Home". This
is achieved specifically through my theoretical reading of the series as meta-commentary on
the revision isms of American history and present foreign policy decision-making, presented
through my concept of the 'reboot', which is developed in sympathetic concert with Rosier's
own emphasis on popular culture / mass-media imagery asthe medium for presenting her
critique within the series.
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