The spaces in-between : the emotional geographies of art therapy and place

When we found out that the theme of the 2016 Goldsmiths Art Therapy conference was about place and space, we (Anita and Sheridan) submitted a proposal for a collaborative art installation that would consist of projecting images onto the canvas walls of a large tent. We proposed to ask conference delegates to send us images prior to the conference of culturally and emotionally resonant artworks or photographs that documented remembered and imaginary places and spaces that somehow connected with art therapy, including from delegates’ childhoods. We wanted to invite other art therapists to join us in exploring inner and outer spaces and in creating a place in-between – a ‘third space’/ thirdspace’ (Bhahba 2004, Soja 1996) – where these memories and imaginings would be responded to through art making. We were initially thrown off balance, and then delighted, when our British colleagues Jill Westwood and Lesley Morris from the Goldsmiths conference collective emailed us to say that they were proposing to build an entire tent city with art therapy students on the College Field. On the basis of the unexpected similarity between Westwood and Morris’s proposal and ours, they generously invited us to join them in conceptualising and assembling the major conference art installation