Weaving Bayo Akomolafe’s ideas into a queer and posthumanist art therapy practise

23 Oct

Written By Eva San

1) The times are urgent, let us slow down

Sense: Urgency rushes us to find quick fixes. Fast can feel powerful yet it often fuels the same problems and keep them alive. Slowing down is a decolonial refusal, it lets other kinds of wisdom catch up. Creativity, spirit, memory, culture, and the more than human world arrive when there is space. Grief and compassion can re-enter the room when slowness becomes the pace.
Studio moves:

Begin with a slow arrival. Feet on floor, three long exhales, eyes soften to the edges of the room.
Use slow materials, air dry clay, tearing and weaving paper, crafting with thread, like hand-stitching and crochet.
Invite time language, “What happens if we move at the speed of the bark, or at the pace of a snail.”

2) Make sanctuary, not solutions

Sense: Sanctuary is a small, real place where life can go on, even in trouble.
Studio moves:

Create a “sanctuary corner”. A small cloth, a leaf from outside, a stone, a bowl of water, a handful of flower petals. Clients choose what belongs there today.
Close sessions by resting the work in sanctuary. A breath, a line of thanks, an offering.
Document “what was nourished”, not only “what was achieved”.

3) Stay with the crack

Sense: Cracks, rifts and ruins are not mistakes to seal and cover up. They are doorways where new worlds peep through.
Studio moves:

Kintsugi inspired paper repairs. Tear, then mend with visible thread or gold pastel. Ask, “What does the repair change, not fix.”
“Map the crack.” Draw the fracture lines in a life story and sit beside them, not over them. Title the map with a verb, “becoming”, “listening”, “refusing”.

4) Court bewilderment

Sense: Getting lost is a practice of humility. Queer, decolonial work thrives where certainty loosens its grip.
Studio moves:

“Blind contour introductions.” Two minutes drawing without looking at the page. Share what surprised you.
“Questions, not answers.” Place three questions around the work, “What if,” “Who else is here,” “What does this ask of me.” Return to the image next session.

5) Walk with tricksters and monsters

Sense: The figures we fear may be guides. Trickster energy reroutes power. Monster work befriends the estranged self.
Studio moves:

Make a small trickster. Found objects, wire, bark, thread. Ask, “What rule do you bend for my freedom?”
“Monster masks.” Paint the creature you avoid. Give it a task, guarding sleep, speaking boundaries, eating shame.

6) Practise withnessing, not just witnessing

Sense: We do not stand above, we stand with. Withnessing and witnessing through the senses is a kind duet. The body pays attention. The art material answers. We stand with what is here until it feels a little less alone, and from that companionship, the next steps potentially appear.
Studio moves:

Two labels beside each artwork, “What the image knows,” “What the relationship knows.”
Therapist places a tiny mark on the page with consent. Name how you are moved. This de-centers the old, tired narrative of the lone creator and honours co-making.

7) Become kin with the more than human

Sense: Posthumanist care expands the circle. Country, materials, weather and animals are companions and collaborators.
Studio moves:

Invite a companion, stone for steadiness, water for cooling, bark for holding. State the role of the more than human aloud, “Clay will hold what words cannot carry.”
Return companions with thanks, or to place, to keep reciprocity alive.

8) Compost identities and diagnoses

Sense: Categories are useful and partial. Compost turns what was once rigid into soil for new life.
Studio moves:

Write the constraining label on scrap paper. Shred, soak, pulp, and remake a small sheet. Emboss a chosen word into the new page, “kin,” “becoming,” “sovereign”.
“Name and unname.” Place clinical language beside lived language. Keep both visible without letting either rule.

Eva San