Thesis Defence: Collapsed Within
August 18 at 10:00 am - 2:00 pm
Pegah Khor, supervised by Professors Briar Craig and Shawn Serfa, will defend their thesis titled “Collapsed Within” in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Fine Art in Visual Arts.
An abstract for Pegah Khor’s thesis is included below.
Defences are open to all members of the campus community as well as the general public. Registration is not required for in-person defences.
Abstract
This thesis explores grief, migration, psychological fragmentation, and rebuilding myself and my life through abstract painting and collage based on material experimentation. The work grows from personal experiences of loss, especially the death of my father, migration from Iran to Canada, and the emotional impact of displacement and the process of finding self. It examines how trauma can live within the body, memory, and material surfaces.
Using paper, oil, pigment, tea, staples, and collage, the studio process becomes a space for breaking down and rebuilding. The materials are weakened, torn, layered, submerged, and repaired to allow fragility and instability to shape the final work. In this process, paper becomes a metaphor for the wounded body, holding traces of grief, violence, endurance, and change.
This research connects personal mourning to larger discussions of collective grief, diaspora, and political trauma, especially in relation to recent events in Iran. Drawing from trauma theory, phenomenology, and diaspora studies, the thesis considers how memory and loss are experienced both personally and collectively, extending beyond individual experience into shared cultural and historical realities.
The final works exist between abstraction and figuration, presence and absence, destruction and survival. At some point, paintings evolve into sculpture. Set within dark spaces, the paintings and collages create a feeling of suffocation, tension, and fragile endurance. Ultimately, this thesis presents art not as therapy, but as confrontation: a process in which destruction can lead to renewal, and damaged surfaces become witnesses to survival.
