OCAD - Health Summit - Program - November24

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PANEL DESCRIPTION

Shadow Play: Exploring the Relationships Between Body & Space in Physical Rehabilitation & Public Health

November 24, 9:30am - 10:25am, Room 284

Geoffrey Edwards, Canada Research Chair in Cognitive Geomatics, Université Laval
Marie Louise Bourbeau, Bourbeau Voice Dynamics

We carry within us all a set of shadows, aspects of our selves which we store in the lowest levels of our own awareness. Some things are, amongst the different cultures of the world, hidden more deeply than others. Within many contemporary cultures, knowledge of the body is a part of our shadow, as is knowledge of our sexuality, of our identity, of pain, of poverty. In a social context, even the individual’s personal sense of spirituality must sometimes be “protected” from, and kept distinct from codified, institutionalized versions. In our world of beautiful bodies and multi-task mania, disability lodges deep in our culture’s shadow, almost a taboo subject. Yet, within both personal and social perspectives, disability brings to the surface such disparate elements of shadow.

It has long been recognized that metamorphosis, the possibility of personal transformation, is rooted in what is often called “shadow work”. Through the development of a series of installations and performances as well as of a studio laboratory space currently under development, we have been exploring what we call “shadow play” with a view to opening up new possibilities of transformation. Presently, we are primarily concerned with different ways of engaging with our bodies and our knowledge of our own bodies. Our methods focus on non- intellectual ways of knowing : how we instinctively use “image schemas” to understand space, how appropriate and unusual use of technology can constructively perturb our knowledge of the body in powerful ways, how one can grapple with complex issues using emotional knowledge. We also explore and acknowledge multiple identities, as well as how the environment may reflect different modes of being to us. We ponder how various types of body-knowledge open us to a greater contact with shadow parts of ourselves that defy explanation (and hence with our spiritual self). We present examples of initiatives involving the skin, the breath, the hands, and the voice in a context crossing the borders between art, science, culture and health and we highlight what remain to us as open questions.