International Network for the Study of Spirituality
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Spirituality and the Arts Special Interest Group (SASIG)
Chair: Dr Lila Moore PhD
| In recent years there has been growing interest in the intersection of the arts and spirituality. This special interest group meets to discuss this intersection in a variety of forms and mediums such as visual art, music, film, dance, digital, interactive, poetry, time-based and performative art forms. This includes the personal, social and cultural, encompassing both the religious and the spiritual-but-not-religious (SBNR) context. |
About the SASIG
The purpose of the group is to explore a variety of relationships between the arts and spirituality, such as:
- The arts as a spiritual practice
- Spirituality as creative practice
- Altered States of Consciousness (ASC) caused by an encounter with the arts
- The arts and the transformation of consciousness
- The arts, Spirituality and Social Change
Our approach aims to be interdisciplinary, so we explore the juncture of the arts and spirituality through the lenses of consciousness studies, spirituality studies, religious studies, theology, psychology, neuroscience, anthropology, sociology, health/wellbeing, philosophy, art, aesthetics and literary theories, musicology; and through the lenses of different agents: artists, curators, therapists, academics and independent scholars, general public, popular initiatives, etc.
The Aims of the SASIG are to:
- Explore and encourage the development of conceptual criteria to detect and discuss the spiritual qualities in the arts
- Encourage more scholarly research on the relationship between the arts and spirituality
- Explore and encourage the discourse of the spiritual in both public and private spheres of the arts
- Explore and encourage the establishment of conceptual means and language that would be useful to artists who are interested in incorporating aspects of spirituality in their artworks and their practices
To become involved in the SASIG, please register for our next event.
All SIG meetings are free for INSS members. Non-members are welcome to attend for a small donation.
INSS membership includes online access to the Journal for the Study of Spirituality, access the INSS-members-only SASIG page containing profiles of other attendees (if shared), and free access to all other INSS SIG events.
Our email address is mailto:sasig@spiritualitystudiesnetwork.org
We now have a Youtube channel where you can watch the recordings of our Zoom meetings.
We also created a Facebook group: please join it!
The Chair of the SASIG is Dr Lila Moore PhD
Lila is a lecturer, theorist, film-maker and mixed reality artist with expertise in the fields of screen-dance and Technoetic Arts. She holds a practice-based PhD from Middlesex University (2001) in the interdisciplinary context of Screen Dance, experimental film, modern art, performance, myth, ritual and expressive therapies. She also holds an MA in Independent Film and Video and MPhil on the evolution of performative and screen-based art forms from Central Saint Martins College of Art & Design, London, and a B.Ed. degree in Fine Art & Art History.
Lila lectures and writes on the arts, film, and new media in the context of modern and contemporary spirituality, mysticism, gender, cultural theories, and technoetics. She is a lecturer and thesis supervisor for the Alef Trust MSc Programme in Consciousness, Spirituality and Transpersonal Psychology, and leading the course: Psyche, Cosmos and the Imaginal. Additionally, she has been a lecturer at the Department for the Study of Mysticism and Spirituality at Zefat Academic College in the ancient Kabbalistic town of Safed (2013-2022), teaching BA courses on spiritual cinema and the intersection of spirituality, mysticism and the arts. Her postdoc at the Planetary Collegium of Plymouth University (2015) entitled The Cybernetic Futures Institute is a networked platform, exploring technoetic arts with an emphasis on the spiritual-mystical and occult in art, film, screen-dance, and networked-digital-interactive forms of performance and narrative.
Lila regularly presents research papers in academic conferences, and her articles were published in academic journals. She is a member of the editorial board of Consciousness, Spirituality & Transpersonal Psychology journal and the S/He International Journal of Goddess Studies. Lila participates in juried exhibitions and festivals and her digital artworks, films and theoretical writings are archived by Bloomsbury Digital, ACM SIGGRAPH and ADA - Archive of Digital Art.
Acknowledgement
Grateful thanks are due to Annalisa Burello MSc and Rev. Prof. June Boyce-Tillman MBE for their role as Co-Chairs with Dr Lila Moore PhD from the inauguration of the SASIG in March 2022 until February 2026. Their combined vision and leadership, with each member of the group contributing unique expertise from her own field as well as enthusiasm, creativity and a great deal of time and sustained effort, has established the SASIG as a vibrant and innovative meeting place within INSS.
The interdisciplinary nature of the SASIG and the many presentations and conversations that take place within it will continue to contribute to the development and understanding of spirituality and the arts under Lila's ongoing leadership; and we are delighted to note that Annalisa and June will remain active members of the INSS community.
The INSS Executive Team
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