Through the Rabbit Hole: Images as a Language of Transition

Abstract

The intention of this production dissertation is to study the ability of images to communicate as a language—perhaps the first language that humans learn. This language arises from the unconscious and accesses information that cannot be expressed in words alone. To express this language, this dissertation studies the work of four different artists across a span of four hundred years. They include Hieronymus Bosch, Leonora Carrington, Frida Kahlo, and Carl Jung, who did not consider himself an artist, but is interpreted as one in this dissertation. Through them, the language of images becomes robust and elaborate, with the strongest gestures occurring at times of both personal and collective transition throughout history. The images act as an index, much like any language, by which future generations may learn from their stories. Later in the study, the language of images is examined in a clinical setting, with reference to the work of Susan Bach and Gregory Furth. A production piece is then analyzed in the final chapter with reference to the methodology of alchemical hermeneutics and the narrative power of transition and transformation in both the self and the collective unconscious. This process slowly creates a map of a personal, internal landscape and allows the reader to view the experience of descent into the unconscious.