corporeal space

Corporeal Space (Ongoing Series) is a cathartic exploration of bodily-spatial experiences of anxiety. During Derealization/Depersonalization (see 1), one’s self seems to spill outside its corporeal boundaries to merge with the space around it-becoming a fluid entity of the “in-between” space of the abject (see 2) (Julia Kristeva, 1982). Although this strange sensation of the self becoming humming, fluorescent space is terrifying, the Corporeal Space Series embraces this gooey nothingness and represents it as a beautiful, corporeal space. The Corporeal Space Series provides an alternative, therapeutic space that exists outside the Western symbolic order’s control. In this “semiotic chora”, anxiety can be felt and embraced. This embrace of anxiety is a daring act of catharsis-by allowing oneself to feel anxiety and to accept uncertainty and chaos, anxiety loses its power and healing can begin.

 

1. Depersonalization-Derealisation disorder makes one feel as if one’s sense of self is “disappearing” into nothingness and melting into the surrounding world. This sensation either causes a deep sense of panic or makes one feel robotic, “cold”, “distant from oneself”, “alien” and makes it difficult for one to function (act “normal” in social situations, walk, talk etc.).

2. In feminist psychoanalysis, the abject is the binary opposite of the paternal symbolic (that which cannot acknowledge its debt to nature).