Somatic soldier: embodiment and the aesthetic of absence and presence

The lived experience of the soldier has long been the subject of artistic inquiry and scholarly analysis. In this paper I reflect on my own art practice and research into Fijian military embodiment and the ways that Fijian soldiers and private security workers negotiate a liminal space between embodied indigenous knowledge (presence) and somaesthetic military practice (absence). As Maltby and Thornham (2012, 37) explain, “the dual articulation of the body constructs multiple understandings of it as simulta- neously lived and imagined, public and private, present and absent, experienced and represented”. I broaden these ideas around visibility/invisibility and the absence and presence of the military body through an analysis of key works by contemporary artists Lisa Barnard and Suzanne Opton.