Fourteenth International Conference on the Arts in Society

Abstract

This performative presentation is an invitation to engage with – and reflect through – material gathered as part of a research enquiry in which I use art-making as a reflexive tool to critically examine less visible aspects of organisational life. Drawing on my background in art psychotherapy, and conceptualising my research as a “speculative weaving,” I follow the intertwining threads, reflexive dialogues, and ethical dilemmas that emerge in response to my encounters with – and subjective experiences of – a stroke rehabilitation day-centre. The gestural, performative, repetitive, and constructed nature of weaving offers rich metaphorical and textual material for exploring tensions, resistances, and complex personal, social, and political entanglements as I weave the work through different institutional spaces. The idea of place is particularly poignant when considered in relation to ‘care for and of the body’. It draws attention to what the situation may provide, respond to, evoke, activate, enable, or silence – and points towards how the material, physical, or psychological/emotional body may be received, touched, handled, positioned, examined, and categorised by an “other” in different contexts. Such questions emphasise ethical concerns relating to vulnerability, exposure, intimacy, dependence and trust, and the use – or abuse – of power. Through exploring the dynamic interactions between myself, the institution(s) in which I am immersed, the emerging body of artwork, and the audiences that engage with it, I consider what may be made manifest through the art-making process, and the ethical questions that are provoked through a confrontation with it.