Sanctuary : a journey into flesh : what is mine, what is other?

Abstract

This study is about the experience of embodiment in illness, one’s relation to the self and to others, all within a particular context such as a place of constraint or exchange. The conceptual framework lies embedded in the process of Reflection, Relation and Revelation through which the ill person in hospital encounters the self and seeks, through empathic dialogue, to share feeling and reveal new meaning in his or her life. The aim of this study is the contemplation of the mineness - otherness relation of being. When the otherness feeling reaches threatening levels, say during a serious or chronic illness, the person experiences a form of homelessness, alienation or exile. This triggers or aggravates feelings of helplessness, resistance, fear and meaninglessness within the ill person. Illness in fact works to deform and distort all the meaning and value one gives to one’s life. A feeling of terminal loss is experienced within the physical body as chaos floods the brain. Even language is incapable of fully addressing the internal tension that comes with illness because it strives to make articulate the unpresentable or the abject. My project is directed towards analysing this experience and creating an artistic way of overcoming boundaries of flesh in an effort to reach out to the suffering other through the process of empathy. An empathic audio-visual tool called Sanctuary was created to serve a narrative, the ill person’s narrative. It is presented in the form of a visor which allows the viewer to enter a ‘bunker-like’ space. An empathic encounter with the self aims to be triggered through the process of participation in the artwork. The play of tension within a restorative, sheltering space is followed with planned empathic dialogue between the nurse and the ill person.