An embodied methodology for site-specific transpersonal research in the arts

This article proposes a methodology and theoretical foundation for practice-based transpersonal research in the arts, which involves an immersive engagement with place and matter. This kind of engagement allows the artist-researcher to move beyond their conscious mind, to let work emerge directly from the felt experience of being in an outdoor location and from the interaction of the place’s materiality with the artist’s body. The model is interdisciplinary and draws on Nagotomo’s Attunement through the Body (1992), the theoretical literature of parapsy-chology, somatic practice and Cajete (2000) and others’ writings on Indigenous methodologies.