The term “shadow” has appeared in various cultural and theoretical contexts. In Western psychology, it was articulated by Carl Jung as a way of describing aspects of the self that are suppressed or rendered unconscious within the psyche. Jung situates the shadow within the framework of psychotherapy, where engaging with the shadow side is understood as a process of personal healing, growth, and transformation. While I acknowledge this lineage as one historical articulation, my research deviates from Jung’s approach.

I approach shadow as the product of socio-political conditions, internalised and embodied, which become unconscious through processes of normalization, regulation, and social control. It is understood as the abjected, disavowed, or obscured part of ourselves, produced, regulated, and maintained through social, cultural, and political conditions, and is materially lived and sustained through our bodies. Therefore shadow cannot be reduced to a person’s innate psychological state, as addressing the internalised conditions without engaging the external conditions only leave the dynamics that produce shadow intact.

S.H.A.D.O.W. is a research project investigating how socio-political processes of abjection, disavowal, and obscuring are inscribed, enacted, and made perceptible through embodied practice. My interest lies in the body’s potential to sense and hold our shadows. Through movement, attention, and embodied sensing, I explore how traces of our shadows — which are marginalised, hidden, and suppressed — can surface somatically. We start with questions and curiosity, instead of looking for answers, resolution, or analysis. The goal is to embrace our shadows in all their complexity, allowing them to simply be present, legible, and felt within a shared embodied space.

Research questions

• How can embodied practices reconnect us to our shadows that are not easily accessible through verbal or cognitive reflection?
• What new forms of knowledge emerge when the shadow is approached as an embodied practice?
• How do shadows manifest in movement, sensation, posture, rhythm, and spatial relations?
• What is required to be in place for safe and ethical encounters with our shadows?

From this research, I have developed Shadow Dancing, a guided meditation to engage with the shadow through embodied practice.

Image: Olga Shtonda