Defense Date
2026
Document Type
Thesis
Degree Name
Master of Fine Arts
Department
Painting and Printmaking
First Advisor
Holly Morrison
Second Advisor
Cara Benedetto
Third Advisor
Pia Bakala
Abstract
Spilt Milk explores how institutional discipline is rehearsed across the Pakistani home, school, and television soap opera. These seemingly domestic spaces converge at the military-industrial complex, where media propaganda (ISPR) and consumer commodities collaborate to manufacture a unified national identity.
Through an installation of school desks and re-fabricated cereal boxes, this project examines the ‘cereal/serial’ as a site of ideological consumption. By refabricating these boxes with embroidery, drawing, lace, and synthetic hair, the work subverts state-mandated narratives. These material interventions replace assembly lines with spills of hair and sweat to highlight the vulnerability of the body under surveillance. This project argues that the act of spilling disrupts the rehearsed script of the state, allowing personal narratives and suppressed histories to surface through the seams of the everyday.
Rights
© The Author
Is Part Of
VCU University Archives
Is Part Of
VCU Theses and Dissertations
Date of Submission
5-5-2026