Prototype for a Therapeutic Action, 2015

Prototype for a Therapeutic Action engaged with performance, objects, place and time while highlighting an embodied relationship to walking and one’s local context. Before the exhibition, Cutler went for a walk with registered clinical counselor Toni Pieroni to explore the relationship of therapy with walking and embodiment. With a shared interest in ecological concerns, they discussed the convention of the 55 minute therapeutic hour, the talking cure and the importance of cultivating a connection to the natural world.

The project was inspired by artist Joseph Beuys’s interest in social sculpture which can be seen on one level as therapeutic, an attempt to heal the wounds of the social body—both the external wounds inflicted on others and the internal wounds of collusion and denial. His commitment to objects as symbols and as a means to affect his audience reveals a belief that materials have magical power both for the artist and for the audience. In a vitrine objects were installed that have demonstrated the potential to engender therapeutic effects. The audience was encouraged to take a Therapeutic Action Card and experience their own 55 minute walking cure.