Our Praxis

Our practice begins with the social field. These are the subtle patterns of attention, gesture, power, and proximity that shape how groups function. In the studio, we treat these dynamics as material to be sensed, explored, and formed. The space becomes a site of artistic and relational inquiry. We work with silence, arrangement, and shared timing to invite participants into a slower, more responsive relationship with one another. This is not about performing inclusion or simulating teamwork. It is about becoming aware of how the body speaks, how presence shapes collective experience, and how we might reshape the space between us with care and imagination.

We understand dialogue not simply as exchange or discussion, but as a form of action. In the tradition of Paulo Freire, dialogue is the means through which people name their reality together, reflect critically on their conditions, and act to transform them. We call this dialogical action. It is both relational and political. It is grounded in presence, but it does not stop at mutual understanding. It moves toward shared responsibility and collective transformation.
In our practice, dialogical action involves verbal and nonverbal forms of expression. We attend to silence, rhythm, posture, and gesture as much as to spoken language. Dialogue happens through the body as well as through words. It unfolds in trust, in conflict, in rupture, and in repair. We create conditions where participants can stay with discomfort, ask difficult questions, and reflect together on how their relationships are shaped by histories of power, privilege, resistance, and care.

At the heart of Workspace Social Sculpture is a willingness to stay with paradox. We work with tensions that are not meant to be solved: equality and difference, safety and danger, vulnerability and strength, inclusion and exclusion. These paradoxes are not abstract. They live in the body and in the dynamics of group life. They show up in silence, resistance, and desire, and they shape how people listen, speak, and make meaning together.
Rather than seeking clarity or resolution, we create spaces where these tensions can be held with care. We support groups to move toward—not away from—complexity, contradiction, and uncertainty. This is not a therapeutic goal. It is a pedagogical, relational, and institutional one. Staying with paradox builds the capacity to remain present with difference, to resist the urge to simplify, and to hold space for transformation as an unfolding process.

We live paradox rather than resolve it. (Chris Mowles)

At Workspace Social Sculpture, we begin with the body. Long before a group speaks, it is already communicating. Through posture, movement, eye contact, breath, and silence, participants express what is permitted, what is feared, and what is unknown. We understand embodiment not only as a personal experience, but as a social and institutional one. The body carries histories of power, trauma, belonging, and exclusion. It is where the social field is felt and where transformation begins.
Our work creates conditions for participants to become aware of how they move through space, how they hold tension, and how they respond to others without speaking. This awareness is not just about presence. It becomes a form of inquiry. The body reveals what is known but unspoken, what has been learned through repetition, and what might be re-patterned through attention and care.

Workspace Social Sculpture is grounded in the understanding that art is not only expressive, but epistemological. We approach research as a process of inquiry that is felt, lived, and practiced—often through form, rhythm, and embodied presence. In this sense, research is not about control or certainty. It is about learning to stay with questions, to move with tension, and to shape the conditions through which something previously unseen might emerge.
In our work, the studio becomes a site of artistic inquiry. Silence, gesture, image, and improvisation are not used to illustrate ideas. They are the means through which understanding is formed. We draw on traditions of artistic research that honour ambiguity, aesthetic responsiveness, and multiple ways of knowing. This is research that cannot be reduced to outcomes. It values resonance over replication, emergence over explanation, and the situated knowledge that arises through collective experimentation.

We recognize that many people carry embodied histories of harm, exclusion, and disconnection into collective spaces. These do not always speak loudly. They often show up in what is not said, in tension held in the body, in withdrawal or hypervigilance, or in the difficulty of staying present. Our work is trauma-informed in that it honors the nervous system, makes space for choice, and supports the pacing of each participant’s experience.
But we are also careful not to confuse trauma-informed practice with a promise of safety. This work is not always comfortable. It asks people to turn toward what is difficult—not to be overwhelmed by it, but to become more responsive to it. This is why we also speak of courage-oriented practice. We work to cultivate collective conditions in which people can move with uncertainty, navigate affective intensity, and take ethical risks in relation to one another. This is not a private therapeutic journey. It is a shared political and pedagogical one.

We approach institutions not as fixed systems, but as dynamic and relational fields. They are made and remade through daily practices, through how we gather, speak, listen, and withdraw. Institutions live in architecture, policy, habit, and gesture. But they also live in the body. Transforming them requires more than structural change. It asks for collective awareness, presence, and a willingness to notice the subtle repetitions that hold culture in place.
Through Workspace Social Sculpture, we support organisations to become more attentive to how power and care circulate within their everyday practices. Our work is not about delivering solutions. It is about creating the conditions in which institutions can sense themselves. This means supporting moments of reflection, creative disruption, and the emergence of new relational possibilities. The goal is not control or coherence. It is responsiveness, aliveness, and co-responsibility.