Who am I? : a practice-led enquiry of documenting social selves using autoethnographic narratives and inventories

Who am I? I investigate this question, using graphic inventories and written narratives as autoethnographic method to document social selves . I utilise Ian Burkitt s theoretical discussion of social selves , but draw on my own experiences of the home and the family to represent and display social individuality as auto ethnography. I suggest that social and historical relationships are not separate from the self and I argue that the self is formed in daily social relations with others, which can be documented through drawing and writing. I use autoethonography to employ a practice that creates works through narrative and inventory. I use a practice-led methodology to frame my use of autoethnography as a method of creating art practice through narratives and inventories The body of the thesis is structured in three sections. Situating Practice (Chapters One- Three, which establish my theoretical parameters) and Inventories and Narratives (Chapters Four-Nine, which record my domestic spaces, such as cupboards, and narrate my family interactions and activities). My social relations are remembered as behaviours, which constitute self-knowledge and are accessed through material culture in objects. In positioning my relations with spaces and objects I refer to artists such as Mark Dion, Michael Landy and Rachel Whiteread. The Findings section of the thesis discusses the application of Burkitt s social selves as a form of art practice. I conclude that written narratives and graphic inventories can change the display of social selves and the practise of creating them; by showing and telling is an attempt to answer the question Who am I? .