Abstract
This study explores how the myth of Katabasis - the descent into the underworld - might act as a productive metaphor for collaborative art-making and community art practice. It addresses the politics of fluency and considers how sensory and psychological immersion in shadows rather than certainty might help improve the understanding and evaluation of these practices and processes. Resisting tidy frameworks, this emerging tool for engagement and growth is transferrable to community, pedagogical and academic domains where sensitivity to different cultural linguistic systems is essential, for reasons of justice, democracy and inclusion. It draws from art history, DIY culture, community theatre and performance, while also applying democratising cognitive research findings concerning aesthetics. Building on previous collaborative cross-disciplinary manifestations of Deleuze and Guattari’s rhizomatic thinking, the session will be experiential and reflective, using guided and material exercises. The session will commence with a silent sensory experiment, with audience/participants working with a multiplicity of highly affective hand-made art objects, followed by a guided silent group reflection and final contextual spoken summary by the practitioner. This forms part of an emerging research project, so the reflections of audience participants will be gratefully received. It will contribute evidence, an early test of the hypothesis that arts-based research with communities requires the building of fluency on the part of both practitioner and participants, in new and existing languages and cultures, and this can be experienced through collective katabasis, guided co-immersion in the mythic geography of the unknown.
Presenters
Celia BurbushPhD Researcher Art & Social Practice, Drama and Film, Manchester University, Manchester, United Kingdom
Details
Presentation Type
Theme
The Arts in Social, Political, and Community Life
KEYWORDS
COLLABORATIVE ART-MAKING, CO-RESEARCH, COMMUNITY ART PRACTICE, POLITICS OF FLUENCY, PSYCHOLOGY
