Know thyself: Awakening self-referential awareness through art-based research

Across all cultures, some form of the dictum to know thyself has echoed throughout the ages as our primary calling in life. Many great thinkers believed that turning attention inward and conscientiously exploring the diversity of our inner landscape would awaken human consciousness. In many ways, they were validating a core sentiment of art-based research (ABR) discussed in this article. That is, through the self-referential, autonomous and egalitarian quality of images accessible through the arts, we can know and research layers of personal identity. This can happen through various approaches to ABR including scientific and contemplative methods. Additionally, misunderstandings from the academy and from within the expressive therapies, which can define a nascent field like ABR, also need to be addressed. Therefore, this article is divided in two parts, one focusing on a personal example of ABR and the other looking at challenges to the efficacy of ABR.