Journal May 2026 Release_Full Edition - Flipbook - Page 47
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Lucy:
What allows you to harness energy creatively in the face of that
explosive fund? How do you think you are learning to do that?
Jen:
I can say that my past habit was to bottle everything up using blame
and guilt, being a certain kind of person, not being just happy to
settle down with the guy. Crushing myself into this depression. A star
super-nova contracts and contracts into a black hole, exploding in a
way so violent, ridding people around me, pushing people away, with
fiery turmoil, contracting again really quickly. The whole self-policing
thing we’ve been talking about versus creative expansiveness. Now,
it’s more deliberate and controlled, I’m feeling at peace, it’s more
gradual… It feels like the black hole has turned into light.
Art, by engaging the vitality and contingencies of life, brings us closer to
experiences of the world’s energies. As Mendieta herself writes, “My art is the
way I re-establish the bonds that unite me to the universe” (1988, p. 71).
Conclusion
Art is a bid for conversations with the world, and like Kusama’s room full of stars
or Rist’s adventure in color, sound, and light, our narrative approaches can
conjure unimaginable visions. There is growing awareness of the power of art,
science, and relational belonging. Deleuze and Guattari teach me about
“becoming-artistic,” reaching beyond clients’ subjective experience to embrace all
forms of life (Grosz, 2007, p. 300). Art documents our potential in ways beyond
text and logic. By bringing together the vitality of art, creation, and all processes
of becoming, we can reimagine the world and ourselves. There are possibilities
beyond our perceptions, stories, and beliefs when we step out of conventional
systems of representation, sense-making, and the ‘self.’ Through art and
narrative, we can interact with a sentient Earth and situate ourselves within the
living geographies of our land and cityscapes, cultures, technologies,
imaginations, and relationships.
Breaking the Frame: Aesthetic Encounters with Narrative Practice – Part Three
Journal of Contemporary Narrative Therapy, May 2026 Release, p. 25-51.
www.journalnft.com
