artmaking as embodied enquiry: entering the fold

by Susan Sentler (Editor), Glenna Batson (Editor)

Overview

What can a fold be? Virtually anything and everything.

For centuries, folds and folding have captured the world’s imagination. Folds readily appear in revivals of the ancient craft of origami, amid the simplest acts of pedestrian life, within the philosophical turnings of the mind, and in art, design, architecture, performing arts, and linguistics around the world. What awaits our understanding is how deeply the fold figures into embodiment, into our very impulse to create.

This book is about folding as a vibrant stimulus for inter/trans/postdisciplinary artistic research, whether for the performative, for product realization, or simply to enliven body, mind, and spirit. Destined for artmaking—for making any art—the f/old practice etches into the very fabric of embodiment. As such, the f/old reaches outside the constraints of disciplinary silos into nice areas that embrace the unknown, with all its underlying tensions and ambiguities. In conceiving of art made differently, two seasoned facilitators Susan Sentler and Glenna Batson share the abundance of their decade-long collaboration in developing their approach to practice research in the fold. In addition to their insights, they invite eight of their collaborators to contribute, each a veteran artist of a diverse genre.

Featuring a wide variety of practice samples and images, this book reflects on a current and unique somatic-oriented arts research practice and pedagogy with an intriguing blend of interdisciplinary concern and practice.

 

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781789389678
Publisher:	Intellect Books
Publication date:	03/26/2025
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	326
File size:	23 MB
Note:	This product may take a few minutes to download.

About the Author

Glenna Batson, ScD, PT, MA, has worked at the intersection of dance, movement science and somatic education for more than five decades as a movement muse, scout, guide,mentor, advocate, artist and friend, teaching embodied practices to anyone eager to engage and co-create.

Susan Sentler BA, MACP is an artist rooted in the fields of Dance, Performance, Visual Arts working as educator/lecturer, maker/choreographer, researcher, director, curator, dramaturg and performer. She has practiced globally for over 30 years and began teaching in Higher Education in 1992

Susan Sentler (BA, MACP) is an independent dance artist/maker working as choreographer, teacher, researcher, director and performer. She served as senior lecturer with Trinity Laban Conservatoire of Music and Dance for 18 years and has taught globally in the field of dance for over 30 years. Susan’s practice is multidisciplinary, rooted in the somatic image, creating ‘responses’ within gallery/museum contexts as well as durational installations, weaving body, objects, sound, moving and still image. Her work has been exhibited and performed in the United Kingdom, Europe, the United States and Asia. Currently, she is a lecturer of dance at LASALLE College of the Arts in Singapore.

Glenna Batson (PT, Sc.D., MA) is an independent researcher/lecturer in dance, Somatics and science. For the past 35 years, she has honed a trans-disciplinary approach to the study of embodied cognition by bridging dance, science and somatic studies. Glenna is professor emeritus of physical therapy at Winston-Salem State University (USA) and is an internationally recognized teacher of the Alexander Technique. Her current research focuses on the neuro-phenomenology of imagery in movement creation. She recently authored Body and Mind in Motion: Dance and Neuroscience in Conversation and co-edited Dance, Somatics and Spiritualities: Contemporary Sacred Narratives.

Table of Contents

List of Figures 
Preface
Acknowledgements

 

Part I - enter

chapter 1. Welcome

chapter 2. Bio-origami: history, herstory, our story

chapter 3. Scaf/fold

chapter 4. Wayfolding/wayfinding\processes

chapter 5. Languaging

chapter 6. Anarchiving on both sides of the lens of the digital f/old

 

Part II - re-enter 

chapter 7. 'bearing witness to the knotting skies': some reflections from the f/old – Meghna Bhardwaj

chapter 8. audiorigami: folding sound and sounding the fold – Jude Casseday

chapter 9. the f/old in fashion practice – Daniela Monasterios-Tan

chapter 10. fold.fall.nest. – Susan Sentler

chapter 11. notes on architecture and collaboration: unfolding the f/old - Sony Devabhaktuni

chapter 12. algorithmic folding - Jamie Forth

chapter 13. 5 notes from Tenjinyama – Mattie Wang and Sophie de Serière

chapter 14. the compulsion of presence – NiFe: Jennifer Lucey-Brzoza

 

addenda 

addendum 1. Workshop description examples

addendum 2. Script examples

addendum 3. 5 experiential folding activities

addendum 4. Hybridity

addendum 5. Podcast

 

Notes on Contributors