When Past Meets Present: Transference, Art, and Affectivity in Reflexive Research

This article reflects on emergent findings from an interdisciplinary practice-based doctoral research project situated in the fine arts. Grounded in artistic practices of ‘making’, and weaving in approaches from psychoanalysis and art psychotherapy, the author explores what happens when things are moved from one context to another and how meaning is continually (un)made and (re)made over time through returning to revisit and respond to material ‘made’ in the past as it meets the stuff of new situations in the present. Emphasising the affective ‘work’ of art-as-research, attention is drawn to sites of ‘making’ as reflexive spaces for imaginative encounter, performative enactment, and working through, where understanding emerges through the affective work of moving, (re)assembling, and (re)configuring diverse practices and materials, the interweaving of dialogues, and the negotiation of tensions and resistances encountered at the borders between different domains. Claiming a position in the broad area of reflective practice(s) the research amplifies the significance of ‘transference’ as a reflexive method of enquiry, and the creative potential of art as a performative research practice; pushing beyond more conventional ideas of reflection and reflexivity in its capacity to embrace complex relationalities, and engage affective, ethical, sensibilities through the moving, modifying, and handling of ‘stuff’.