Crossing the Field: Creating Intra-active Spaces through a Participatory Artists̢۪ Event

Crossing The Field art installation began as a series of reflections on our experiences of the radical shifts and changes in the place of, and spaces for art therapy in the UK. Provoked by the crisis of whole populations of people traversing the globe in search of a place of safety and refuge, these discussions grew into the concept of a collaborative tent city on the college field. At the same time our colleagues in Australia were moved by similar concerns to imagine a tent-shaped installation of builders’ plumb bobs and line, a void space inside the positive space suggesting tension, precision, intention; a place where borders are articulated. Together we offered delegates a series of collaborative art-based sessions within these conducive spaces. This wider collaboration of artists, we hoped, would reveal more of the cultural and political significance of art and space in art therapy practice, and through this enhance the conference’s project of rethinking relationships with the everyday places in which we work. Participants moved between indoor and outdoor spaces – co-constructing an encampment of embellished tent structures on the college field; responding to and extending the plumb bob installation indoors or the visible tent city outside; drawing, making and moving; touching the space, the void and the present.