Journal May 2026 Release_Full Edition - Flipbook - Page 41
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representational history, narrative therapists use exceptions, multistoried
perspectives, and reauthoring to liberate story geographies from the subjugation
of problem stories, pathologizing labels, and identity conclusions.
Many significant artists use imagery and text to recover captured spaces and
identities. For example, South Korean artist Do Ho Suh’s Fallen Star depicts a
house precariously perched on the edge of a library, speaking to identity,
displacement, and immigration. Christo describes his and Jeanne-Claude’s blue
umbrellas occupying a bright green landscape, saying, "What I want to create is a
poetical colonization of the space” (as cited in Weisman, 1990, p. 13). The Native
American artist Hock E Aye Vi Edgar Heap of Birds uses aluminum signs to recover
territories through language, reminding us of the geopolitical potential of
narrative. Mark Bradford’s monumental artworks depict a physical reordering of
the personal and the historical. In 2022, I visited Bradford’s Pickett’s Charge at the
Hirshhorn Museum in Washington, D.C. Its richly stratified surfaces suggest a
palimpsest that, through erasure and layering, offers an alternative to
emplotment, with a simultaneous dialogue between the past, present, and future.
The sheer heft of abrasion and repurposing in Bradford’s paintings turns conflict,
excavation, and identity into powerful declarations of who and what has the
power to be seen and documented.
As we attend to clients’ stories, we hope to uncover the story elements hidden
beneath the pretenses of historical truth. Gary Saul Morson (1994) writes that “...
the danger of narrative models is that they transform the process of activity into a
finished product” (p. 20). Whereas client problems reduce space and totalize
meaning, our narrative questions open space and reclaim territorial rights over
the telling of our stories.
A conversation with my client, Jackie, illustrates her process of claiming new
spaces. We discuss how anxiety and trauma keep her from owning and inhabiting
her intuition and wisdom, which she needs to feel safe and present. Our talk
touched on her relationships with her mother and daughter. We have done
somatic work, and Jackie continues striving to “live with less fear in this world.”
Breaking the Frame: Aesthetic Encounters with Narrative Practice – Part Three
Journal of Contemporary Narrative Therapy, May 2026 Release, p. 25-51.
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