Art as a spiritual practice. The interplay between artistic creation and spiritual search in seven Colombian artists

ABSTRACT

This paper explores the ways in which artistic creation and spiritual search interrelate in the life and work of seven Colombian artists who took part at the Laboratory of Art and Spirituality in Bogotá (2022–2023). Based on a hermeneutic analysis of different narrative and reflexive materials produced by the artists during a ten-month period of spiritual and artistic exploration, the first part delineates the artists’ understanding and practice of spirituality in a plural world. The Discussion section investigates the connections between their artistic and spiritual practices, emphasizing their understanding of art as a vehicle for accessing and communicating spiritual insights. Thus, this work aims at contributing both to the study of the shapes spirituality takes today and to the investigation of their relationship to the arts.

KEYWORDS:

• Contemporary spiritualities
• reconfigurations of religion
• artistic understanding
• arts-based research
• phenomenology
• meaning-making through art

Acknowledgments

The Laboratory of Art and Spirituality (2022–2023) was formed by C.M. Gómez (Project leader and Artist-researcher), Natalia Reinoso (qualitative researcher, who made the River of Life interviews), Corina Estrada (Research Assistant), Ximena Bernal (Lab Leader and Artist-researcher), Roberto Restrepo (Documentary Director), Angélica Chavarro (Artist-researcher), Alejandro Zuluaga (Artist-researcher), Guillermo Santos (Artist-researcher), Susana Gómez (Artist-researcher), Rodrigo Restrepo (Artist-researcher).

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Funding

This project was possible thanks to a grant from Templeton Religion Trust, Art Seeking Understanding [grant no TRT-2021-10479].

Notes on contributors

Carlos Miguel Gómez-Rincón

Carlos Miguel Gómez-Rincón is Associate Professor at the School of Human Sciences, Universidad del Rosario-Bogotá. He earned a Ph.D. in Philosophy of Religion from Goethe Universität-Frankfurt and an M.A. in Religious Studies from Lancaster University, U.K. He holds B.A. degrees in Philosophy and Literary Studies. His research areas are interculturality, traditional forms of knowing, philosophy of religion, and hermeneutics. Besides his philosophical work, he writes poetry and narrative.