The Hermeneutic Role of Art in Spiritual Experience. Building a Laboratory for Art and Spirituality

This project aims to design and explore a novel interdisciplinary methodology to describe and appraise the extent to which artistic
creation reveals and gives meaning to spiritual experience. This methodology is based on four principles: (i) collaborative research
involving an interdisciplinary laboratory of artists working together with philosophers and social scientists; (ii) participatory
observation in activities aimed at engaging participants in the description of their own creative and interpretative processes
around spiritual experience; (iii) reflexivity and dialogical understanding using autoethnographic instruments and
phenomenological analysis; and (iv) interculturality to ensure the inclusion of Latin American perspectives in the global discussion.
The main activities include seven residential workshops and regular online discussion sessions. Workshops are retreat-like spaces
in which participants come together around a guiding topic and a series of spiritual practices (e.g., contemplation, meditation,
prayer, and psychophysical exercises) and artistic activities to observe, describe and discuss their creative process in relation to
spiritual experience. The use of autoethnographic journals and other instruments will serve this aim. The data produced will be
analyzed using a phenomenological approach.
The main product of the laboratory will be a convergent documentary platform (CDP). The CDP will be a web-based, free access
platform whose core materials will be eight short documentary video pieces capturing the creative and reflective process of the
participants at the laboratory. At least one academic paper will also be published. The project offers an important contribution to
the ASU program, in terms of the clarification of the characteristics and processes involved in artistic understanding, as well as
providing a model for future interdisciplinary work. In addition, the project will identify and explore indicators of the way in which
artistic creation improves understanding, which could be developed as empirically traceable categories in a second phase.

Experiencia espiritual, comprensión, creación artística, cognitivismo estético.

- CDP (plataforma documental convergente)
- Artículos
- 7 Talleres
- Proyecto para la siguiente fase.