FiLiArt REFUGE EXHIBITION EAST LONDON

The word ritual is often associated with archaic and superstitious practices. Yet what I have found both through my cross-cultural research and also through my work as a psychotherapist is that creative ritual, at it’s basic form, offers a safe liminal space within which meaningful transformation can begin to occur. It is an opportunity to initiate or mark change on both personal and collective levels. The dictionary definition of refuge is the state of being safe or sheltered from pursuit, danger or difficulty. Many of the men and women I have worked with, have not found refuge within the homestead, which is often the site of loss, conflict and trauma, and have instead found it through their own inner work and connection to nature. Finding refuge both within the Self and through feeling part of and connected to nature can often be a profoundly healing experience. The films I make offer rare insights into some of these creative rituals, and it is hoped they open up the opportunity for women to tell their own stories, which spring from their embodied experiential realities.