The language of inner experience is art: Participation mystique – Art-based research approaches

Abstract

This article describes Shaun McNiff’s perspective on people as artists, in the form of a practical application, an artistic achievement and a contextualization of McNiff with contemporary quantum philosophy by Karen Barad. McNiff recognizes people as active participants in the healing and learning process. The inner images experienced are expressed through art-based methods. The so-called intra-actions by Barad can be transferred to the dialogue between creator and the object, McNiff transforms them in the work of art. Here, art contributes to an essential sense of well-being, conveys connectedness by representing an entanglement of the creating person, feeling and material. Conversation can also be understood as inner contemplation, and in any case, always at the centre is trust in the process that unexpectedly allows things to speak and relate. McNiff anticipates contemporary quantum-physical ideas of philosophy, which describes for example the Agentic Realism, as ‘existence is not an individual affair’.