Reconnecting with the body : destabilizing dyads in artistic practice

Abstract

This paper describes three emerging female artists that reconnect the act of writing back to the body in their process of creation and execution of artistic works. They disrupt the Cartesian dyad of mind over body that persists in Western culture by creating an abstract, nonlinear, and (un)controlled environment in a performance and/or installation framework. As female authors in the position of creative control and as female performers using abstract words and language as the main source of creation, they reclaim their bodies, writing and speaking from the body to destabilize dyads and contradict the notion of subjectivity.