Prinellapy Keable

Nature of the ‘self’: A heuristic inquiry exploring self-actualisation and the human- nature connection using eco-art therapy practices

I am a woman, a dreamer, a creator. My dream to become an art therapist seeded in 1999 when I began a visual arts degree and noted powerful benefits and personal growth in creating art. The dream continued to germinate, I enrolled in a Bachelor of Psychology and later was employed in the mental health sector.  The dream now fully blooms as I complete a masters of mental health art therapy. My new dream is to seek a pure, authentic and untainted connection to Mother Earth and ‘Self’.

My research explores my new dream and aims to answer the following questions: How can the human-nature connection be explored using eco-art therapy practices? What impact does creatively exploring the human-nature connection have on one’s journey toward self-actualisation? To answer these questions, I combined organic inquiry and Moustakas heuristic method to allow the process of connecting creatively with nature (eco-art therapy) to be a naturally occurring process without restrictive boundaries. I wanted my interaction with nature to be organic and freely concomitant. I noticed through my interactions a sense of belonging to something ‘bigger’ than me; something alive, something beautiful, something inherent in my human connection to all that surrounds me. I noticed intricacies that I have previously overlooked and not taken time to appreciate; everything I saw became a living art piece, myself included. I recognised these insights as having qualities attributable to peak experiences, an important feature of self-actualisation. From these experiences came a flood of ideas of how I can create alongside, and with, nature.

My creations for this exhibition bring to life these ideas and offer insight into my experiences whilst on my research journey. I wanted to incorporate nature (e.g., moss, plants, sticks, seed pods), with functional manmade objects (e.g., chair, lamp shade, chalkboard, and steel bodice) to highlight the beauty and life that nature brings to an arbitrary object. This joining (re/connection) represents my experience and transformation from being consumed by the rigors and constraints of societal expectations to one that ostentatiously embraces nature as my higher power and connection to ‘Self’. I use these pieces as a beautiful and creative reminder that my everyday experiences can foster peak experiences and continued journey toward self-actualisation.