Sasha Bergstrom-Katz
Sasha Bergstrom-Katz is an artist, researcher and writer working at intersections of the history of science, pyschosocial studies, STS and critical medical humanities. Sasha has come to CK in order to re-examine her artistic practice by experimentally investigating how clay has been used as a medium for self-exploration and physical and mental therapeutics in the diverse discipline of art therapy.
PROCESS & DEVELOPMENT
(re)searching in clay
Eyes closed, I place my hands on the surface of the clay. Springy under my fingers, its firmness presses back. A little more pressure, I can make an imprint; with enough force, I can break the surface. To work with clay is to negotiate its unique properties, to get to understand its different states, from wet to dry, from sticky to firm, from pliable to brittle. To work with it, on the other hand, is also to get to know oneself, or so art therapy suggests. The negotiation, thus, is two-directional. I get to know the clay and, perhaps, the clay gets to know me, or at least, I get to know myself through it.
Clay, some art therapy practitioners say, is an ideal material to work with due to both its materiality (it is like playing with earth, it is malleable, the body and mind come together in harmony when working with clay) and due to its mythic qualities (were Adam and Eve, for example, not crafted out of clay?). Many different theories of art therapy use clay: for example, therapists might be psychoanalytically inclined, analyzing the metaphors and images that come about in the patient’s artistic work, or they might instead prefer to think about the psycho-physiological possibilities of clay therapy, where ‘touch’ itself is the therapeutic agent.
WINDOW DISPLAY
As I worked in the clay field here in this studio—sometimes with eyes closed, sometimes not—I played both subject and therapist. It became difficult to tell who I was. This duality of doing and observing belies the actual therapeutic process, as does the firing of the clay, which freezes these otherwise ephemeral, shifting dialogues into static scenes.
This display, behind glass, exhibits the research process of looking into these psychotherapeutic methods, into the materiality of clay, and into myself.
