The Body Speaks: Art as Language

Abstract

The idea of the female body as a site of oppression often can seem lost in the unconscious of many women. Even now in the twenty-first century, we still live in a system that has fostered this way of thinking and acting throughout Christianity and beyond. Bringing new ways of thinking and being can prove difficult to many women who think that they are now both equal and free. Yet for those women who are aware of these challenges continue the revolution in ways that are understood by them both personally and politically. Feminist liberation theologies have long been seeking and finding tools to liberate and change the way women are seen, heard and more importantly how they see themselves. I argue that visual art is another way of giving voice to the female body and as a feminist liberation theologian and visual artist, I propose visual art and body theology are fitting companions for this venture. Bodies of knowledge are bursting to speak and relate through creative practice; this is another way of speaking and all of the arts come under this umbrella. The fluid boundaries of the arts and the use of the somatic practice of psychology will enable me to look at how bodies see, hear and remember experience through movement and dance. The new cosmology, a branch of science that has at its heart creative praxis, will help the conversation further, as it looks at fields of energy in all sentient beings including the planet itself. Thus, holding a relational quality within all of creation. I see that enabling women’s voices to communicate through the language of the visual arts opens the door to knowledge behind which has hidden the incarnational value of women’s divine being.