Curating Knowledges within transdisciplinary ‘(Play)Spaces of Possibility’

Description

In this paper we will seek to tell the story of our efforts to craft a project which weaves together disparate knowledges and practices relating to the therapeutic role and potential of communal rhythmic practices in relation to trauma. We found, as we developed together a picture of the extant knowledge from across our varied disciplines and the other-than-academic therapeutic and artistic practices we encountered, that two main obstacles to developing an holistic account of this diverse knowledge were:
1. Difficulties in drawing together academic concepts, knowledges and notions of evidence from across a span which stretches from the experimental sciences to the more abstracted reaches of the arts and humanities in a way which respects and retains their sometimes contradictory epistemological and ontological bases.
2. And, relatedly, that incorporating artistic, spiritual and experiential knowledges from beyond academia without ‘domesticating’ them into the structures of academic thought and practices remains more challenging still.
Our response to this conundrum has been to design artistic/transdisciplinary ‘playspaces’ through which we will work to bring together and curate extant and emergent knowledges and practices. These spaces, we posit, will operate as ‘spaces of possibility’ within which knowledges and practices, epistemologies and ontologies, and disciplines both academic and not, can exist in their own terms and with their diverse ‘vital materialities’ (Bennett 2018; Rousell 2020) undimmed These spaces of possibility will be held by us to encourage openness and relationality, through which transdisciplinary collaborations, relationships and ‘research-creations’ (Lupton & Watson 2022) might emerge.

Period	11 Jul 2024
Event title	4th International Conference of Possibility Studies,
Event type	Conference
Location	Cambridge, United KingdomShow on map
Degree of Recognition	International