#methodology #selfanalysis #3
WHY and HOW can the journey be part of reflective practice?
The most famous traveller in the western culture is Ulysses.
The archetype of Ulysses tells about a man with a past, an adult man who acted and thought, not a young boy at his first experience. Ulysses' journey is the narrative expression of controversial topics such as adventure, nostalgia or voluntary departure. Ulysses' journey straight away becomes knowledge and discovery. In Dante's Inferno is the expression of the tension to know, commonality with others, regeneration: all stages that sign life and memory.
Being a traveller opens minds to chenge, the journey is a common place of experiences because produces deep individual levels of social and psychological structures.
"Consider ye the seed from which ye sprang;
Ye were not made to live like unto brutes,
But for pursuit of virtue and of knowledge."
Dante Alighieri
- Divine Comedy, Inferno (Canto XXVI vv. 112-120)
In Dante's narration Ulysses is not ignoring the attachment to the family, but this doesn't stop him from his need of knowledge; he calls brothers his friends and he pushes them to ask themeselves about the meaning of life and enjoy the existence as a chance to keep on learning.
This is also my viewpoint of "journey". It is a trip to open, to break balances and it is crucial because it triggers up the dynamism of that kind of exchanges which composes the experience of "knowledge". In my experience the journey defines a path of autonomy and exposes the individual out from the comfort zone, challenging the individual every day.
The journey is a world practice, a more complete humanization in a moment in
which individualism is making people forget the very nature of being a human being.
It is also a way to produce culture out from closed systems: in fact this is a dialogue and open system based practice.
My itineraries are thought to merge the art practice with the journey experience. To develop the observation capacity in this way is very useful for innovative reflection.
The return is not the conclusion, but a reflective and elaboration moment. research is a journey and in every journey the man looks for a piece of himself; it is a mirror in which we can find stereotypes, anxieties and prejudices.
(picture above: Burnley coach station-here and here more infos)
