The Hermeneutic Role of Art in Spiritual Experience. Building a Laboratory for Art and Spirituality
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abstract
This project aims to design and explore a novel interdisciplinary methodology to describe and appraise the extent to which artisticcreation reveals and gives meaning to spiritual experience. This methodology is based on four principles: (i) collaborative researchinvolving an interdisciplinary laboratory of artists working together with philosophers and social scientists; (ii) participatoryobservation in activities aimed at engaging participants in the description of their own creative and interpretative processesaround spiritual experience; (iii) reflexivity and dialogical understanding using autoethnographic instruments andphenomenological analysis; and (iv) interculturality to ensure the inclusion of Latin American perspectives in the global discussion.The main activities include seven residential workshops and regular online discussion sessions. Workshops are retreat-like spacesin which participants come together around a guiding topic and a series of spiritual practices (e.g., contemplation, meditation,prayer, and psychophysical exercises) and artistic activities to observe, describe and discuss their creative process in relation tospiritual experience. The use of autoethnographic journals and other instruments will serve this aim. The data produced will beanalyzed using a phenomenological approach.The main product of the laboratory will be a convergent documentary platform (CDP). The CDP will be a web-based, free accessplatform whose core materials will be eight short documentary video pieces capturing the creative and reflective process of theparticipants at the laboratory. At least one academic paper will also be published. The project offers an important contribution tothe ASU program, in terms of the clarification of the characteristics and processes involved in artistic understanding, as well asproviding a model for future interdisciplinary work. In addition, the project will identify and explore indicators of the way in whichartistic creation improves understanding, which could be developed as empirically traceable categories in a second phase.
