The Art and Psyche Working Groupin collaboration with Pacifica Graduate Institute will offer a four-day conference along with an exhibition of C.G. Jung’s The Red Book and Black Books at the Art, Design & Architecture Museum, University of California, Santa Barbara. Also included are images created prior to and following the creation of Liber Novus that have been gathered into a book along with relevant essays to be published as „The Art of C.G. Jung“ (Norton 2018).

During the course of the conference, participants will have the opportunity to walk a few short steps from the primary venue on the UCSB campus to the Museum and view first-hand the images now at the heart of analytical psychology. A book launch for „The Art of C.G. Jung“ will be a part of the festivities and authors who have contributed essays to this exciting new volume will be featured speakers as part of the conference program. The Red Book has moved beyond the circumscribed world of professional analysts and psychotherapists to fascinate and influence the general population worldwide since it became a best seller in 2009 and the exhibition will run from January through April2019 free of charge for anyone interested.

Just as Jung’s The Red Book was a living symbol of renewal out of the ashes of World War I, we are planning a conference for the creative expression of psyche as it persists through the troubled times surrounding us – from environmental disasters to political turmoil. We hope for illumination through the interplay of word, image, and body as it manifests in artistic productions, conference presentations, and as it emerges spontaneously through collective interactions throughout the conference itself. Inspired by The Red Book – in many ways conceived by Jung as an illuminated manuscript – we aim to create an experience of unfolding awareness of soul that reaches back to medieval times and forward into an uncertain but potentially meaningful future guided by the illuminated imagination. We hope to revalue Jung’s practice of active imagination as a powerful tool for both a clinical and cultural revitalization that serves as a connection with depth and that opens us to the possibility for surprise.

As has always been the case with Art and Psyche conferences, we invite artists of all kinds, including poets, painters, sculptors, writers, actors, architects, dancers, and musicians, along with psychologists, psychoanalysts, psychotherapists, expressive arts therapists, dance therapists, and anyone interested in depth psychology ,to submit proposals that revolve around “The Illuminated Imagination” as the center that connects us. With in Spiration from this over-arching theme, we invite you to follow creative threads as they lead into expressions and modalities of your choice.

The following may serve to spark your ideas for proposals but please do not feel constrained by our suggestions:
- Artistic practices and processes as forms of individuation
- Embodied imagination and movement
- Word and image: from ancient to modern forms
- The symbolic function of art within the life of the maker
- Eco-psychology, individuation and imaginal processes
- The animated vision of the indigenous psyche
- Deepening the use of active imagination within clinical practice and beyond
- Illumination and its symbolic meaning
- The Red Book as inspiration
- The religious function of the psyche
- The value of play with mind, body and soul
- The value of art during times of political upheaval
- Arts-based research

The conference and exhibition site is a wonderful one! Located on the sea, the plenary and break out rooms have water views and on the other side, mountains are clearly visible. Temperatures will be warm and comfortable in early April and we will host an opening reception, the book launch and a gala dinner outside on the patio adjacent to the main meeting area. A food court is housed in the same building as the conference.