Between me and myself
In collaboration with:
With the support of:
kana arioka
This symposium draws inspiration from the Japanese concept of ‘Ma, the philosophy of in-between,’ to examine the human psyche. Our consciousness, with its self-assured ‘I’, is situated in a headstrong ‘in-between’ where that ‘I’ is by no means in control: a space that gapes like a stubborn ‘in-between’ and continues to gape between who I think I am and who I wish to be, between what I desire and what that desire promises to fulfil.
‘Ma’, 間, Japanese for ‘space’, acquired a specific meaning that extends across numerous domains of Japanese culture and which, to put it mildly, is not always easy for Westerners to grasp. Whereas for us ‘space’, alongside ‘time’, a neutral quantity, a ‘dimension’ that allows things to be what they are without exerting any influence on them, Japanese ‘Ma’ presupposes a space that is subtly connected in some way to the things that are in it, just as those things are affected, influenced, if not determined, by that space. Space is an ‘in-between’ that as such affects what it is between.
kana arioka
The architecture of the space ‘between me & myself’: inspired by the Japanese concept of ‘Ma’ (and specifically by the impact of this ‘Ma’ on Japanese architecture), Archipel and Psychoanalysis & Culture are organising a symposium on the space that separates us from our most intimate selves.
Tekst: Marc De Kesel
More details on the programme coming soon.