Embodied Creative Practice as a method for cultural recovery.

Abstract

 We exist in the marriage of physical and spiritual remembrance. It is in these spaces that we identify with our physical and imagined bodies.’” (Saye, 2017, p. 42).”

This paper weaves through my artistic journey, and my adoption of an embodied practice, as a methodology of recovering my voice and self, as a creative practitioner. This paper examines the photograph as an immortal object that transcends time and space, and highlights its capabilities in producing non-linear narratives, challenging fixed notions of time which underpinned the western colonial project. Through my analysis of works of the British Gambian Photographer Khadija Saye, and my photo project ‘Orí Inú’, I showcase the ritualistic process of photography, as a liberatory force of sustaining life, as well as its capabilities in carving a space of solidarity for the photographer and viewer. By focusing on Ìṣẹ̀ṣe (Yoruba Spirituality) and Spiritualist Photography, I demonstrate the power of photography in imagining speculative possibilities, that go beyond the normative understandings of marginalized bodies, and the rethinking of our vulnerable world.