Podcast Summary: New Books Network – Art-Making as Spiritual Practice: Rituals of Embodied Understanding

Episode Overview This episode features host Carrie Lynn Evans in conversation with Professor David Newheiser, editor of the new book Art-Making as Spiritual Practice: Rituals of Embodied Understanding (Bloomsbury, 2025). The discussion explores how artistic practices can be understood as spiritual rituals, independent of explicit religious content or belief. The book investigates the embodied, habitual, and sometimes ritualistic dimensions of art-making and how these provide unique forms of knowledge and spiritual experience. Combining contributions from scholars and artists, it offers a paradigm-shifting perspective on the connections between art, ritual, and embodied understanding.

Main Themes

The Book’s Genesis and Objectives

• Community-Driven Origin: The book grew from an interdisciplinary community brought together in Melbourne (05:16). Scholars and artists engaged with each other's practices through studio visits to explore the linkages between art-making and ritual.
• A New Lens on Art-and-Religion: Rather than focusing on religious symbolism in secular art or the spiritual lives of artists, the collection investigates the practices of both artists and religious ritual, scrutinizing the non-discursive, bodily, and habitual aspects of both (05:16-10:28).

Quote:
"We wanted to bracket both the symbolic content of artwork and also the question of the artist's own commitments and come at the question in a new way by thinking about particular practices that artists engage in and how those practices might be similar to or different from in interesting ways, the practices that religious people engage in."
— David Newheiser (05:55)

• Thematic Pairing: Each section in the book pairs an essay on a religious ritual with one analyzing a specific artist’s practice, linked by a central theme (e.g., movement, time, medium). This structure invites readers to discover both explicit and implicit connections.

Key Discussion Points and Insights

Art as a Distinct Way of Knowing

• Beyond Propositional Knowledge: The book argues for expanding what counts as knowledge to include embodied, tacit, or 'insightful' forms of understanding that arise from creative practice (12:02-15:39).
• Power and Knowledge: Following Foucault, Newheiser notes that the systems of knowledge constituted by art are intertwined with systems of power—including how non-European art was classified during colonialism, both as exclusion and later reclamation (12:02-15:39).

Quote:
"It’s a kind of access to the world that can’t necessarily be captured in propositional statements. But it still has a kind of […] weight to it as a way of understanding how things are."
— David Newheiser (12:33)

Art, Ritual, and the Secular

• Art Museums as Ritual Spaces: Newheiser highlights scholarship showing that museums are ritualized spaces that shape their visitors' behavior and cultivate a kind of aesthetic citizenship, analogously to how religious rituals shape communities (16:14-23:11).
• Contemporary Art and Spirituality: Noting recent trends, he observes a return or re-engagement with religious themes in art exhibitions, challenging the longstanding assumption that art and religion are fundamentally at odds (16:14-23:11).
• Epistemic and Political Dimensions: The book draws attention to how art, particularly from marginalized communities like Australian Aboriginal artists, has been both a site of exclusion and a tool of empowerment and legal-political activism (23:35-26:49).

Thematic Chapters (with Timestamps and Highlights)

Movement (27:28-33:15)

• Artist: Heather Hesterman — landscape art and guided “sound walks.”
• Scholar: Natalie Carnes on the Catholic Eucharist; ritual movement as a practice fostering vulnerability and responsiveness.
• Insight: Both art and ritual involve bodily engagement which can cultivate attunement—to place, others, or the sacred.

Time (33:44-37:52)

• Scholar: Marco Ghislani on Vedic rituals and “sacred time.”
• Artist: Adam Lee; paintings as votive objects, unfolding over time.
• Link: Artistic and ritual practices embed and shape participants’ perceptions of time.

Medium (37:52-43:09)

• Scholar: Jonathan A. Anderson; analysis of Arthur Jafa’s video art using Christian materials.
• Artist: Chris Bond; reworking historical paintings in new media.
• Insight: The medium of practice is not neutral but transformative, shaping the meaning and experience of ritual/art.

Subtraction (43:12-49:54)

• Scholar: Elaine Oliphant questions presumed universalism in art/ritual, discussing how context and agency are often "subtracted" in Western frameworks.
• Artist: Live Particle (Camilla Mehling & Angela Clark); tactile, subtractive performance art.
• Insight: Subtraction, whether in omitting context or tools (e.g., camera), can open new forms of experience and attention.

Invention (49:54-54:26)

• Scholar: Molly Farnath on Jewish liturgical reinvention.
• Artist: Dominic Redfern; photographic and video art emphasizing viewer invention.
• Insight: Rituals and artistic practice, though repetitive, allow for reinvention and transformation over time.

Attention/Rituals of Menace (54:26-60:10)

• Scholar: Margot Kitz; investigates violent rituals, including ancient animal sacrifice and ISIS beheadings, as spectacles of forced attention.
• Artist: Harry Nankin; cameraless photography as an exercise in direct, undistracted attention.
• Insight: Rituals (even violent ones) and art can function to focus and hold collective attention in profound, sometimes disturbing ways.

Listening (60:10-66:05)

• Scholar: Graham Ward; biblical “disclosure” moments as calls to deep listening.
• Artist: Mark Newbound; documentaries focused on quiet, attentive observation of artists at work.
• Scholar: Enchi Weng; “deep listening” as a practice enabling new forms of participatory, performative knowledge.

Conclusion and Overarching Insights

Art, Ritual, “Spiritual But Not Religious”

• Redefining Spirituality: The book constructs a framework for understanding art-making as spiritual for those alienated from traditional religions, offering a language and practice for “spiritual but not religious” identities (66:05-73:50).
• Mystical Theology and 'Unknowing': Newheiser draws on mystical Christian traditions, arguing that not only knowledge but “unknowing”—openness, receptivity, setting aside the familiar—is vital to both art and spirituality (66:57-76:50).

Quote:
“I am probably myself more interested in unknowing rather than knowledge… one of the things that I think is so powerful about art and ritual is that they free us from what’s familiar... opening space in repetition and in the aesthetic experience... something beyond what's familiar..."
— David Newheiser (74:12)

Knowledge Through Art and Ritual

• Embodied, Situated, Transcendent: Art as ritual gives rise to knowing that’s tactile, emotional, and often incommunicable in words. Iteration, medium, context, and tradition all shape this embodied knowledge.
• Miracles as Change: In a preview of his forthcoming work, Newheiser reframes miracles not as violations of nature but as moments of unexpected change and new possibility—mirroring the “miraculous” power of both democratic politics and art (77:21-82:29).

Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On Artistic Practice as Knowledge:
  “This is a completely different way...There's a lot of knowledge value in creative practice.” — Carrie Lynn Evans (10:28)

• On Ritual and Museums:
  “These museums weren't simply neutral spaces for people to experience beauty, but they were ritualized spaces that were intended to shape a population into certain habits, in much the same way that religious rituals have been developed in order to shape religious observance.” — David Newheiser (20:05)

• On Deep Listening and Artistic Documentation:
  “There's something really unforced, really hands off is the phrase that Mark uses...that gives a kind of access to the materiality of the artist's work.” — David Newheiser (61:35)

• Concluding Reflection:
  “The collection suggests that art as a practice and ritual as an activity that's associated with religion, but is not exclusively religious: these practices give us a kind of insight into the world which is really profound. It can't be reduced to propositional claims. It's sometimes difficult even to bring to language.” — David Newheiser (74:12)

Timestamps of Key Segments

• Introduction to the book and its origins: 05:16 – 10:28
• Art as a form of knowledge & Foucault’s relevance: 12:02 – 15:39
• Art museums, ritual, and secular spirituality: 16:14 – 23:11
• Australian Aboriginal art and power: 23:35 – 26:49
• Overview of book structure and themes: 27:28 – 33:15
• Movement & Vulnerability: 27:28 – 33:15
• Time: 33:44 – 37:52
• Medium: 37:52 – 43:09
• Subtraction: 43:12 – 49:54
• Invention: 49:54 – 54:26
• Rituals of Menace/Attention: 54:26 – 60:10
• Listening: 60:10 – 66:05
• Spirituality beyond religion: 66:05 – 73:50
• The knowledge-producing potential of art as ritual: 74:12 – 76:50
• Discussion of miracles and forthcoming book: 77:21 – 82:29

Final Notes

• The book is available as open access—anyone can read it online for free (82:58).
• Artistic practice, when viewed as ritual, opens up new spaces for knowledge, change, and transformation, especially outside the bounds of organized religion.
• Newheiser’s upcoming work expands these themes into politics and miracles, continuing to bridge the gap between the spiritual, the creative, and the social.

For more, visit Professor David Newheiser’s website at dnewhehser.net or the open-access edition of the book via a quick web search for Art-Making as Spiritual Practice.