The issue of space in a prison art therapy group: a reflection through Martin Heidegger’s conceptual frame

ABSTRACT

The departure point of this reflection is an art therapy group in a prison. The intrinsic identity and circumstances of the prison posed issues which, as art therapists, we felt it was necessary to reflect upon and incorporate into our practice, given their impact on the group dynamic and their impact on our understanding of art therapy. These issues inevitably had to do with the overlap between the space of the art therapy group and the prison-space, and yet these took on a different character when we thought about them from the alternative parameters provided by the philosophy of Martin Heidegger; namely, the relationship or link that experience and existence have with space, as we hope to develop in this paper.

KEYWORDS:

• Space
• existence
• art therapy group
• prison
• Martin Heidegger

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

ORCID

Aixa Takkal http://orcid.org/0000-0003-2577-2704

Katarina Horrox http://orcid.org/0000-0001-6945-3049

Alberto Rubio-Garrido http://orcid.org/0000-0001-8806-3599

Notes on contributors

Aixa Takkal has a PhD in Art, Research and Artistic Production from the Polytechnic University of Valencia. She is interested in exploring the convergence between art therapy and some philosophical positions. She currently lives and works in Valencia drawing and collaborating as an art therapist with groups at risk of social exclusion.

Katarina Horrox is an art therapist working with children and young people in Barcelona, specializing in work with young adults involved with the criminal justice system. She also works regularly as an Art Therapist with young people on Wilderness Therapy Programmes in Scotland. She has a BA in Humanities from University College London and a Masters in Art Therapy from the University of Pompeu Fabra, Barcelona. She is extending her training in Adolescent Development with the Tavistock and Portman Clinic, London.

Alberto Rubio-Garridol is an architect and philosophy PhD. He has published several articles and chapters about aesthetic of architecture, history and theory of architecture and contemporary art. Nowadays, he collaborates with Instituto Valenciano de la Edificación and Universidad Politécnica de Valencia, he works as an architect and he develops a new PhD at Universidad Politécnica de Madrid.