Research: Body of Art
How do we perceive bodies in art, and what can art teach us about ourselves, our body image, and bodily awareness? How can we, by actively using the body as an instrument of research, reduce the distance to art ,becoming not just spectators but active participants and engage in a living dialogue with art?
Premise Every body ,regardless of age, shape, background, experience, or technical skill is a source of expression, knowledge, history, and creativity. The body is not a neutral carrier but an immense archive of experiences, emotions, and cultural codes, in which both personal and collective memory are embodied.
In performance art, the body itself becomes the artwork not because it is “beautiful,” but because it generates meaning through what it does. Through movement, posture, gesture, breath, and intensity, art becomes visible. From this premise, any body can generate art.
Every body has a body of art. This research begins from a radically inclusive standpoint: every body is sufficient and valuable. There are no “right” or “wrong” bodies, and technical mastery is not a prerequisite for artistic validity. This research challenges normative ideas of virtuosity, aesthetics, and artistic accessibility. Its aim is to reduce the existing distance between audiences and art.
In museum and educational contexts, art is often approached at a distance, rationally, conceptually, and visually. My research focuses on developing an embodied, affective, and reflective form of art experience, in which audiences and students are not merely observers, but actively participate in the creation and reception of art.
Body of Art: Theoretical Framework
Body of Art by Phaidon and J. Blessing (2015) offers a comprehensive overview of both Western and non-Western art, spanning ancient to contemporary periods, and including figurative, abstract, and conceptual work. The body is explored through inspiring themes such as identity, beauty, power, the limits of the body, embodied emotions, sex & gender, the “abject body,” religion & belief, absence, and body & space.
The book also serves as an excellent starting point for critical dialogue, raising questions such as: “How does the representation of a work of art relate to bodily experience?”. “Which bodies are absent from the book?”. “How can reenactment provide a critical supplement to visual representations?”.
Art as Therapy by Alain de Botton and John Armstrong demonstrates how art can help us live better lives — by cultivating attention, empathy, self-knowledge, and emotional clarity. The book shows how art can offer comfort, insight, and connection. In my practice, participants are invited to experience these themes through the body. Through posture, movement, and improvisation, emotions and meanings become tangible and felt. Art as Therapy provides a philosophical foundation for my work: art is not something to admire from a distance, but can be an active, embodied process that fosters greater awareness, sensitivity, and connection in daily life.
Performance Studies by Richard Schechner informs my research and teaching modules by providing a framework for understanding what performance can be. It examines how performance as a phenomenon is embedded in everyday life and used as a mode of expression. The book provides tools for exploring play, the distinction between performativity and performance, and insights into the performance process — from preparation, execution, reflection, to processing. It also encourages the exploration of intercultural collaborations and hybrid performance forms, offering perspectives on how performance is deployed today, both inside and outside the art context.
