The art of embodiment: auto-ethnographic portraits of two women's surgical traumas

Two educational researchers heed the responsibility to face their own traumatic pasts in working with women's experiential texts in the present. Using the notion of individual as both artist and image illustrated in the art of body biography, they come together to embody their own intrapersonal stories of gynaecological and obstetrical traumas as auto-ethnographic texts. Using a palette of photographs, found objects, ink, fabric and more, they portray their past on the present canvas of life-size paper placed across the office floor. Pin pricks on the abdomen. The next slice and stitch. Laproscopic cameras. The leg that lurched and twitched. With each expression of meaning, they delve into multiple layers of consciousness, connecting their recurring past to intrapersonal possibilities of women's education in the present. The art of embodiment plays a leading role.