Oedipus Rex (Reclaiming the Myth)

Abstract

Keywords: Oedipus, Animation, Installation, Narrative, Digital, Technology, Art Therapy.

This workshop used as its theme and starting point the Sophocles’ play Oedipus Rex (Sophocles 1988) and took place at the University of Hertfordshire in 2008. The workshop was open to anyone from all of the arts therapies, though only art therapists actually attended the workshop which ran over the course of 2 days.

Central to the workshop was in making art using multi media techniques including animation, installation, sound, puppets and more traditional methods such as drawing and painting. The participants were very much encouraged to make work in response to the story rather than try and ”˜illustrate’ it in a way that is linear and rational. I wanted a personal engagement with the story and not an intellectual analysis of the possible meanings within the narrative. I hoped that by working in this way the participants would almost place themselves in the story and thus come to a deeper and more personal understanding of it via a visual, poetic, physical, emotional and collaborative process.