Date of Award
Spring 5-2-2025
Document Type
Thesis
Degree Name
Master of Fine Arts (MFA)
Department
Art
First Advisor
A.K. Burns
Academic Program Adviser
A.K. Burns
Abstract
This thesis investigates walking as both method and metaphor within an artistic practice grounded in photography. Through walking, I engage in a sustained act of seeing — one that resists the speed and consumption-driven logic of late capitalism and opens space for reflection, slowness, and heightened perception. My photographic work focuses on fragments of the built environment, particularly advertisements, signage, and residual human marks, reframing them through strategies of cropping, isolation, and recontextualization. These images question the distinction between original and reproduction, presence and absence, surface and depth. Drawing on thinkers such as Jonathan Crary, Luigi Ghirri, Siegfried Kracauer, and Douglas Crimp, I situate photography within a larger discourse of image saturation, simulacra, and mediated experience. The resulting body of work does not aim to offer fixed meaning, but instead foregrounds photography’s role in destabilizing our perceptions, inviting viewers to reconsider what it means to see in a world overwhelmed by visual information. Ultimately, this project asserts that walking and photographing are both acts of resistance and inquiry — ways of locating beauty, uncertainty, and truth in the ephemeral details of everyday life.
Recommended Citation
Zubkovs, Jani C., "Indeed, In A Way, It's Worse." (2025). CUNY Academic Works.
https://academicworks.cuny.edu/hc_sas_etds/1365
