Abundant Body Narratives: Re-Visioning the Theological Embodiment of Women through Feminist Theology and Art as a Way of Flourishing

Abstract

One of my projects as a Research Fellow for The Institute for Theological Partnerships (ITP) at the University of Winchester is the Feminist Theology and Art Forum. This project was born out of my Doctoral thesis which combines both art and feminist liberation theologies. Thus creating a methodology in which art as language gives voice to women’s experience within the theological world. The Forum so far has opened a window of opportunity for female artists and feminist theologians alike to exhibit visual artwork that demonstrates their incarnational experience through the concept of Christ/a and Mary/Miriam from a feminist theological perspective. There have been two exhibitions with a third exhibition this year which will have a feminist ecological/theological theme highlighting the important role that many women globally play in their own wellbeing and flourishing in connection with the Earth/Gaia. This article moves briefly from personal experience, which is where all feminist theology begins, into the wider world of possibilities for women to use both art and feminist theology as a model for expressing another way of speaking their experience theologically, ecologically, socially and politically and in so doing create a space in which they too may flourish.