Caring-With Dialogic Sculptures. A Post-Disciplinary Investigation into Forms of Attachment

Abstract

The ‘art practice as research as art’ discussed set out to investigate through dialogic art how identity formation is linked with micro-social experiences and place. The project “Seeds of Attachment” by Elena Cologni is centered around a newly developed non-verbal strategy in the form of a sculptural prop, informed by psychologist Margaret Lowenfeld’s “Mosaic Test” (1938-1954), and discussed in relation to historical precedents in socially engaged art. The activation of the prop during encounters with ‘mothers’ on the school-run route, aimed at offering a context for an understanding of how their attachment to their children influenced the development of an attachment to place. This relational approach is defined as caring with, and underpinned by care ethics and ecofeminism. The implications of the adopted non-verbal dialogic artistic approach are considered in relation to new forms of gendered spatial practices to research on place, including affordances of place, and how these might lead to future post-disciplinary research.