Miho Watanabe

Working Thesis Title: AWARENESS OF BETWEEN-NESS Photographic investigations of an intercultural experience of time, space and memory

Supervisors:  Professor Denise Ferris, Dr Charlotte Galloway, Dr Ella Barclay

This practice-led research focuses on Awareness of Between-ness, the name of a concept I use to reference the space between a subject, camera and artist. Between-ness in my practice is also philosophical. As a Japanese-Australian artist, through photography, drawing and painting, Between-ness explores the real and non-real, reconnecting my heritage and culture, as well as Japanese aesthetics and philosophy. My research investigates and theorises Awareness of Between-ness in the context of the Japanese aesthetic of ma. It asks, how can this concept deepen and support the visualisation of the invisible, the subject of in-between and Between-ness, and what methodology can be discovered raise Between-ness as a full protagonist. The conceptualisation and theorisation of Between-ness and its practice reveals the importance of creating place, translucency, visibility and invisibility, and a balance between an accidental and determined mark-making.