A widening field

This is a book to stimulate the imagination, a handbook for anyone participating in the creative arts. It draws the reader into a series of imaginative journeys – from the realm of the sensing/ feeling body, into creating through moving, making with materials or writing – in order to discover the personal world of image and imagination. The book describes sources and strategies for working with combinations of expressive media. This is a rich and lavishly illustrated sourcebook that seeks to develop a person’s own ways of making or creating. Besides being a creative stimulus for everyone, the book will be an especially useful resource for people studying or teaching in the arts, or for anyone whose professional life involves them in working creatively with others: therapeutically, educationally, or in a community context.

The authors’ previous book, Body Space Image, was about improvised movement, experimental performance, and creating performance settings. This book is a guide that takes us into the detail and anatomy of the body and then outwards through the imagination to discover the images and stories that underlie our lives. As we enter the tranformational world of image, we are moved beyond the prose of our everyday lives into the poetics and felt sense of our own experience.

Cover picture: Werner Bischof, Finland, 1948“

"Perhaps the way that the world sees itself is changing, and the divide between participant and observer, object and intelligence, is diffusing into field activity. This handbook is part of that process."
Antony Gormley (sculptor)