Abstract
In a time when everyday life has become increasingly disembodied and uncertain, questions like: Who am I? and How can I express myself? become not only necessary but essential for sustaining meaningful creative expression. I explore the question: How does art enable a living expression of a multifaceted and whole self? The inspiration for this inquiry comes from my personal experiences of healing a shattered, abstract, and dissociated identity by encountering a sacred wholeness in objects that symbolize core facets of the self, using expressive arts-based methods for integrating complex trauma. As a transnational Korean adoptee who felt rootless for much of my life, it was difficult for me to feel tethered to the messiness in myself and in the world. To find grounding, I had to restore the connection to my heart, body, and environment that had been severed at birth. In my case, a black felt bowler hat, mirrors, flowers, and wing dancing are the objects that reflect my own wholeness of self back to me. I am designing a transformative integration process for trauma healing using objects as metaphors to symbolize a multifaceted yet whole self that I am calling Dialogical Persona. As I continue to live this inquiry using the arts-based research method of a/r/tography, I playfully explore and deconstruct each facet of my process through multimodal artmaking captured in video collage essays, dance performances and self-portrait drawings to show the aliveness and sustenance in the words, images, and literal body of work.
Presenters
Kelsay MyersStudent, Ph.D Student, California Institute of Integral Studies, California, United States
Details
Presentation Type
Theme
2024 Special Focus—-Art for Sustenance
KEYWORDS
A/r/tography, Dialogical Self Theory, Expressive Arts, Transformation, Creative Expression, Multimodal
