THE BODY , MOUVEMENT & DANCE , RITUAL , LIMINALITY , LANGUAGE , MENTAL HEALTH
Moving through life: an exploration of Londoners who practice tai chi and qigong
In this Master’s thesis, I explore Londoners’ experiences with Chinese health practices such as tai chi and qigong. Specifically, I ask how learning and practicing tai chi and qigong changes people’s conceptions of health and help them cope with difficulties.
Theoretically, I place my work within Scheper-Hughes and Lock’s three-body framework (1987), as well as Farnell’s theory of dynamic embodiement (2012).
The Lockdown Body: how the world fell apart and how we built it back up
In this piece, I choose to discuss the COVID-19 pandemic through the lens of ‘lockdown bodies’. I argue that bodies are central to people’s conceptions of the world, their selves and time. By physically removing bodies from the world, lockdown regulations have disrupted these conceptions and triggered existential angst. It was only through the invention of new ‘bodily rituals’ that people were able to resolve this dissonance and build the world back up.
All artworks are made by me.