Abstract

This research-creation MA thesis asks not just how our bodies are relational but how the process of embodiment is relational, and shows why this is important to collective flourishing. Prioritizing this alongside the unfolding climate crisis, the primary question in this thesis explores how our body’s intelligence intersects with planetary wellness, amplifying innate principles of reciprocity that exist throughout our bodies and the wider systems of life on Earth. Presenting healing modalities and strategies that emphasize the body's intelligence and centre concepts of interconnection, this research unites personal ritual, ceremony, dream and ancestor work, somatic therapy and plant medicine with art-making, scholarly research and writing.

The resulting large-scale textile works, comprised of botanical cyanotypes, hand-embroideries and bilateral drawings on cloth, work together with a written thesis to critically examine the fascia of connectivity between individual, community and planetary wellness. Based in the offer of deep medicine to repair relationships “damaged through systems of domination”, this thesis juxtaposes Western medical frameworks around healing against personal experience and the wisdom of traditional and Indigenous cultures. This concludes with redefining the human body and health to encompass the living-systems theory of Healing Justice, where mutual flourishing forms the heart of personal and collective wellness, and showing that our body’s way-of-knowing is inherently linked to planetary health.