Quake Destruction / Arts Creation Arts Therapy & the Canterbury Earthquakes
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quake destruction / arts creation arts therapy & the canterbury earthquakes Deborah Green Doctor of Philosophy, University of Auckland, 2015 1 Many lives have touched mine – in person, text and art. Thank you. And thank you to ∆. You remade yourself by dropping through the sky. I’ve written myself anew consonant-by-vowel. What shall we do with these new selves? Cover image Figure 1. ‘Kite-in-the-rubble’ reworked (Green, October 2015) 2 Contents abstract 4 Phase 1: Separation 5 introduction, rationale, … down into limbo with bangs and whimpers … 6 research questions, structure, some literature, underpinning flying my kite from within the rubble 12 philosophy, and methodology Phase 2: Liminality 57 process, findings and more both betwixt and between and… 59 literature both soulful and cynical and… 67 both neophyte and shaman and liminal monster and… 96 both playful and mindful and… 159 both powerful and powerless and… 220 both singular and connected and… 244 Phase 3: Reincorporation 276 conclusions flying my kite/s from within the rubble 278 references 290 artwork list 305 figures list 307 3 abstract This arts-based inquiry explores my experiences as beginning arts therapist during the Canterbury, New Zealand, earthquakes from 2010 to 2014. At the heart of these experiences lies my challenging dual-role as both quake-survivor and therapist – I was betwixt-and-between quake-destruction and arts-creation. I aimed to make sens/e of this in ways that may be useful to applied-arts practitioners working in similar contexts. My sens/e-making quest blended autoethnography, a/r/tography and arts therapy-as-research. This braided-methodology created a multi-faceted process: I adopted Victor Turner’s concept of liminality as my central metaphor to give theoretical and aesthetic containment. Liminality resonated with my earthquake experiences, my practice-as- therapist and this arts-based research. I teased-open the term sens/e. I used my physical-senses to generate embodiment. I befriended my implicit felt-sense and evoked my soul-sense. Drawing on the French sens for direction, I embraced therapy and research as creating life-forward direction. And I used these sens/ual processes to make meaning and render new knowledge. I created mixed-modal artworks to explore my memories, writings, artworks and photographs as quake-survivor/therapist. I opened reflexive conversations between my creations and texts addressing arts-based research, trauma, liminality, and therapy. I enacted this study via three roles inspired by Rita Irwin’s a/r/tography: As artist, I created art using my quake-arts therapy-process of ‘dropping-in’ which splices Laury Rappaport’s Focusing-Orientated Art Therapy with Shaun McNiff’s images-as-angels process. These creations expressed who I perceived I was, who I currently am, and who I am becoming as artist/researcher/therapist. As researcher, I followed McNiff’s suggestion to craft correspondence between my research process and practice of therapy. My dropping-in process, when combined with autoethnographic a/r/tography, provided a practical way to generate, gather and analyse research material. As therapist, I discovered – via personal experience of wounding/healing, and hands- on implementation of therapy for others suffering – my quake-work had stumbled upon several notions congruent with current intersubjective and embodied arts- and trauma-therapy, exemplified in Stephen Levine’s poietic approach. The outcome is an arts-rich multi-vocal layered-account containing emergent findings regarding: post- postmodern both-and-and…soul-based arts therapy and research approaches applicable to contexts of enduring liminality, in which imagical play invites new order to emerge from chaos, healing is reclaimed within the wounded/healer archetype, and internal communitas becomes a figural intention of trauma-transformation. 4 PHASE 1: Separation an introduction I invite you to take a journey. We begin with a separation, tarry in the transformative confusion of liminality, and then reincorporate by returning to the everyday. While my voice – through my writing and artworks – acts as guide, the intersubjectivity of this arts-based process invites you to simultaneously travel within yourself and explore your own soul-sense of earthquakes. And while my tales stem from real tremors that occurred in Canterbury, New Zealand, your quakes may be metaphoric happenings within your own personal and/or professional experiences. We begin by ritually separating from the everyday. I invite you to settle comfortably … but you’re welcome to move at any time to keep your body from contracting – it’s easy to get wrapped up in the inner sensations and neglect how these affect us physically. Take several slow breaths. Become aware of your breath travelling in and out. Notice the weight of your body. Feel the chair against your back, the seat against your thighs, your feet on the floor, your hands heavy and soft. You are here, now, in this body, in this chair. Shift your attention to your senses. Notice without judgement any tastes your mouth holds in this moment. Move to your sense of smell – notice any scents coming to you in this moment. Shift your awareness to your sense of touch and notice again the mass of your body, the sensations on your skin. Invite your attention to your sense of sight. Take in the colours and shapes about you, how the light and shade catches them, their textures and tones. Finally, focus on what you can hear in this moment. Listen to any noises coming from outside the room. Gently pull your hearing into the room and notice any sounds in this space with you. Now go within. Listen for your breath. Stay with this for a while. Go deeper. Hear beneath your breath the sound of your heartbeat. Drop into this rhythm. Follow this primal beat down, down, down … 5 … down into limbo with bangs & whimpers … September 2010 magnitude 7.1 The bed bucks and jerks, wrenching me from sleep. Before conscious thought awakes, my adrenalin- fuelled body has me up and riding the quake, star-fished in the doorway. The dim lump of ∆, my husband, shifts in the bed. “Earthquake!” I yell. He’s slow to move. By the time he’s struggling upright, the freight-train tremor has roared through the house and off over the Bays. We freeze in a pre-dawn tableau. Suddenly the post-quake cacophony of wailing-sirens barking-dogs raised-voices clanging-alarms rushes over us. I’m quivering from head to toe, charged, electric, ready to fight off demons, slay dragons, run at the speed of light, jump over buildings. The dark outside finally settles and quietens. The power is out and little can be done until dawn breaks. The cats cautiously slope back through the cat-flap. They join us in bed and press into our bodies. I’m meercat-alert, watching dawn slowly dust the ceiling while ∆ snores alongside. 6 February 2011 magnitude 6.3 Beginning the day on edge, I succumb to a strange urge and climb from my car to find and kiss my cats before I leave home. I carry this sideways-ness into my sessions. As beginning arts therapist I’m interning at the Women’s Centre several stories up in an old central Christchurch building. I’m breathing deeply into a gritty tale of anxiety woven by a new client when a deep-throated roar punches through the room. What follows, I recall in jagged shards: -my client’s bloodless face, eyes and mouth wide- -the floor kicking upwards, spilling us off our chairs- -yelling loudly: Get away from the windows!! (these had broken during the September quake and policy was to move to the centre of the building)- -riding the jerking floor as I crawl for the door- -my hand reaching for the round doorknob- -the carpet juddering beneath my knees while all around deafening sounds of tortured metal-glass- timber-concrete-humans, batter me- -huddling semi-foetal with my client in the hallway, covering our heads- -finally, the vast beast galloping on multitudinous thunderous legs through the city stampedes off- Again the moment of frozen silence. Again the incoming blast of sounds – wailing sirens and alarms, screaming, falling glass and masonry, car horns. Figure 2. ‘Reaching’ (Green, April 2011) My client is intact. I think: Car keys and mobile phone. I crawl to my office. The opposite wall is mostly gone, the window in the street below. I tug my bag free from the wreckage of the fallen bookcase. 7 In reception, staff and clients gather. A room full of debris. A woman hopping on one foot trying to put her shoes on. Another clutching a bloody gash in her arm. The entrance door is wedged. I’m terror-strong. Grasping it in both hands, I jerk it free. With a shuddering gaggle of people from the floors above, we hurry down the stairs. I clutch my client’s arm – she’s wearing a blue jersey. The street is thick with dust. Bricks from old buildings and dazed people wearing grime clutter the tortured tarmac. A fierce aftershock and young men shout: Get back from the buildings! Facades are tottering and falling. I can barely speak. My lips are fat. I want to let ∆ know I’m OK. I want to find out if he’s OK. My phone’s not in my bag. A colleague lends me hers. I try to text but my shaking hands won’t behave. My client says she lives out of town and so isn’t worried for her family. We set off for our cars, as we’re in the same parking lot. We walk past fallen buildings. I’m numb. Shock doesn’t let me realise people died here today.