Reflections on Digestions and Other Corporealities in Artists ’ Books

AbstractWith an avid attention to the valuing of embodiment and a championing of the re-emergence of the body as site for discussions of knowledge and knowing, this essay shares aspects of my practice that engage a performative, haptic, situated engagement with the body through the artist ’s book. The motivation for the creation of my bookworks was an interest in manifesting situated knowing and embodied ways of becoming. Engaging form, materiality, and bodily history, my artists’ books explore the processes and metaphors of digestion and in one example, mindfulness practice. In libraries and collections with links to health, my artists’ books can be experienced in teaching and research contexts to examine the body, health, illness and wellbeing. This essay focuses on my books which communicate embodied knowledge in several ways: through phenomenological writing to give e xpression to my irritable bowel syndrome (IBS) and how it impacts on my teaching practice inReflection on Digestion; through bodily material ofEntrail Troyen; through the image of the digestive system inOn Innards,Reflection on Digestion, andEntrail Troyen, particularly the concertina form emulating the undulations of the intestines; and through images of found objects that resemble the bowels inHuwawa in the Everyday.
Source: Journal of Medical Humanities - Category: Medical Ethics Source Type: research