Exploring Safe & Brave Space through Embodied Inquiry
(last edited: 2023)
author(s): Verena Miedl-Faißt, Stephanie Spitz
This exposition is in progress and its share status is: visible to all.
This is the mapping of an experiential session exploring notions of safe and brave spaces through multiple modes of embodied inquiry during the conference "Collaborative World Building. Socially Engaged Art and Art Education" Symposium, University of Applied Arts, Vienna. May 24-26, 2023
The authors are a group of student art educators and researchers, brought together as a cohort meeting online and shaping thoughts on how safe/brave spaces function in educational and collaborative environments. Through this ongoing dialogue, they have collectively questioned the diverse meanings of safe/brave spaces against divergent cultural contexts, the sometimes conflicting roles individuals take on while navigating such spaces, the capacity (or lack thereof) of safe/brave spaces to encourage generative conversations that might reveal bias and break down prejudice, and the potential impact of these conversations might have on the broader societies beyond academic walls.
During the conference, group members guided participants through a set of parallel embodied workshops using drawing, free-writing, and clay construction as vehicles to explore the questions and concerns safe/brave spaces suggest. Traces of these sessions can be explored in this online exhibition.