Navegando Liminal: Rituals to Translate the Image of the Wound

Abstract

Wounding affects everyone, but what happens when the wounds are invisible, ancestral, or have been abandoned? Furthermore, when one accesses the wound, it can bring to the surface shameful feelings too painful to articulate. This art-based research examines the marginalized parts of the soul that have been repressed, overlooked, or abandoned—the wound. It suggests that through play, practice, and creativity, one does not have to follow the over-culture’s age-old prescription of getting rid of the wound, but rather suggests that each wound has a unique way it can be tended to. For this reason, this production dissertation developed a game to translate the image of the wound. The player is invited into a mandala of depth psychological practices, including active imagination and dreaming. In addition, it introduces expressive arts practices such as asemic writing, collage, song, and movement to explore the wound and, most importantly, give it a place to reside, outside of the body. The root of this work has no fixed results; it encourages one to live with the image—to form a relationship with the nightmares, triggers, and unwelcomed complexes. It holds the possibility that the wound, when tended to, can become a compass or a threshold.