The focus of this project continues themes I am continually drawn back to in my practice. Broadly, my practice comes from a curiosity for the human experience, and our attempts to explain it. My focus on the body as a part of this experience led me to Phenomenology. At its core, Phenomenology is a philosophy of experience, studying how phenomena are manifested in our experience and in turn how we perceive and understand phenomena subjectively. Phenomenology attempts a deeper understanding of bodily experience and the interaction between mind and body. Merleau-Ponty describes the unity between mind and body, particularly that the body is not simply an object operating secondary to the mind as the previous Western thinkers of the time theorised. Our bodies are our mediator between experience and our minds, therefore foregrounding the body within the human condition is crucial. I am particularly interested in what happens when we do not recognise this, when we live disconnected from our bodies, ourselves, resulting in disintegration of functions (including evolutionary functions i.e. survival, pain avoidance etc.). When the body is viewed as a purely physical and inanimate thing it becomes as such.
