Material Selves

"This interdisciplinary anthology presents 10 chapters from a range of scholars in art history, cultural studies and anthropology to unpack the complex relationship between people and things via an object-centred model of identity. Presenting a global section of case studies, Material Selves confronts vital questions of identity, agency, and materiality, highlighting the way in which we use objects to tell stories, construct myths and make sense of our place in the world. Thus, this path-breaking volume shows how the objects with which we adorn and surround ourselves provide a model for the construction of raced, gendered, and cultured subjectivity"--

Alex Burchmore is Lecturer in Art History and Curatorial Studies at the Australian National University, Australia. He is the author of New Export China: Translations Across Time and Place in Contemporary Chinese Porcelain Art (2023).

Introduction, Alex Burchmore (Australian National University, Australia, Australia) Part One: Biography and Narrative 1. The Entangled Lives of Still Life: Margaret Olley, Objects, Display, and Art, Chiara O'Reilly (University of Sydney, NSW, Australia) 2. Self Extension: Material Agency, Intimacy, and Chance in Sophie Calle's Object Relationships, Vanessa Berry (University of Sydney, NSW, Australia) Part Two: Adornment and Ornament 3. Refashioning the Khila' in Safavid Persia and Early Modern Europe, Samantha Happé (University of Melbourne, Victoria, Australia) 4. Materiality, Self, and Portraiture: Charles LeBrun's Boîte à Portrait of Louis XIV, Robert Wellington (Australian National University, Australia) 5. 'Furland': Global Fur and Empires of Fashion Materialities in 1930s London, Cheryl Roberts (University of the Arts, London, UK) Part Three: Reclamation and Intervention 6. Upcycling Chaney: The Colonial Detritus of St. Croix, Jessica Priebe (National Art School, Sydney, Australia) 7. Chairman Mao's Good Soldier: Red Collecting, Lei Feng, and Revolutionary Selfhood in Contemporary China, Emily Williams (Xi'an Jiaotong-Liverpool University, China) 8. A Female Embodiment: Gendered Materiality in Chinese Contemporary Art Practices, Luise Guest (University of New South Wales, Australia) Part Four: Subjects and Objects 9. Framing the Self in Early Modern Curatorial Strategies of Porcelain Display, Alex Burchmore (Australian National University, Australia) 10. Furnishings of Legal Lives, Jessie Hohmann (University of Technology Sydney, NSW, Australia) and Daniel Joyce (University of New South Wales, Australia) Index