This volume explores the dynamic dialogue of art within society from a multitude of perspectives across the world. It highlights art as a process that is interwoven with notions of physical and metaphysical transition and represents a fundamental awareness of how art is represented and shaped through everyday social challenges. The chapters in this volume link the idea of symbolic universes with social practices of art in different societies and through different historical epochs, under the assumption that art leads the development of cultural systems underlying society. The volume looks at art that is shaped by forgotten or/and hidden perspectives. It suggests that art may have crucial, phenomenologically approachable variations that have been misunderstood in the scientific fields. The work considers art and science as complementary, instead of as counterparts/opposing forces.

Divided into an introductory and four thematic parts, the volume reflects on historical signs preserved in artwork; explores the meaning behind art and the experience of cultural cultivation; delves into the dynamic shaping of creative expression through art; and, finally, looks at the artists’ own experiences of performance. This volume is of interest to researchers and students in the fields of cultural psychology, semiotics, arts and aesthetics, and cultural studies.

Marc Antoine Campill is a Ph.D. student in psychology at the Università degli Studi di Salerno, italy. His current field interests are influenced by the cultural psychological understandings of the “individuum”, bonded to the inner identification process and meaning generation –- concerning constructs such as pleromatic, Imagination, and MyCu-cultivation. He is dedicated to generating new psychological perspectives by transdisciplinary, integrating the social construction of common knowledge and the scientific meaning of other Naturwissenschaften into the contemporary psychological field. Main focus in his current works are new ways to approach art as science.

Katrin Kullasepp is Associate Professor at the School of Natural Sciences and Health, Tallinn University, Estonia. Dr. Kullasepp’s scientific interests concern cultural psychology and her research focuses on development of identity, including students’ professional identity construction and national identity formation. 

Lia da Rocha Lordelo is Professor of Artistic Languages and Psychology at the Universidade Federal da Bahia (UFBA/UEFS). She has a master’s in education, philosophy and history of the sciences  (2007), and a doctorate in social psychology from the graduate program in psychology of UFBA. She has experience and training in performing arts, mainly through the group Dimenti, and for more than 15 years has been an actress, dancer, and singer in artistic performances.