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Creative healing; artistic practice as a reparative act.

When: —
Venue: Birkbeck 43 Gordon Square

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A panel of academics and artists discuss the notion of creative practice and art-making as a reparative act of healing and self-preservation. In-person.


A panel of academics and artists will discuss the notion of creative practice and art making as a reparative act of self-preservation. Drawing psychoanalytic ideas and writings on art as reparation, the panel will incorporate reflections on personal artistic practice and modes of creative healing.

Stephen Frosh is a founding member of the Association of Psychosocial Studies and the Department of Psychosocial Studies at Birkbeck. He has worked as a clinical psychologist in the NHS and was Consultant Clinical Psychologist and Vice Dean in the Child and Family Department of the Tavistock Clinic, London. His academic interests are in the applications of psychoanalysis to social issues; gender, culture and he is an Academic Associate of the British Psychoanalytical Society

Stella Bolaki is Reader in the School of English at the University of Kent. She is the author of Illness as Many Narratives: Arts, Medicine and Culture (Edinburgh University Press, 2016) and has also published on women’s writing and disability studies. She has led “Artists’ Books and Medical Humanities”, an interdisciplinary project that explored how books, art and healthcare can be interrelated through exhibitions, symposia, and workshops. She is currently working on a new monograph that focuses on ideas and practices of self-care in contemporary literature and culture across a wide range of genres and cross-media representations. 

Patricia Townsend, PhD, is an artist, a writer and a psychoanalytic psychotherapist. As an artist she explores emotional responses to landscape and the natural world through photography, video and installation. Her work has been shown widely in gallery exhibitions and in film and video screenings. Patricia’s writing focuses on the contribution that psychoanalysis can make to an understanding of creative processes. Her book ‘Creative States of Mind: Psychoanalysis and the Artist’s Process’ was published by Routledge in 2019. www.patriciatownsend.net

Judy Goldhill is a photographer, maker of films and artist’s books. Recent projects have examined components of place in relation to such diverse topographies as nuclear sites in the UK, private dwellings and landscapes charged with both public history and personal memory. She has held artist’s residencies in observatories of North and South America, as well as UCL. Her artist’s books have been acquired by numerous international collections, and her complete works acquired by The British Library for its Contemporary British Published Collections. Recent exhibitions are Breathe, Freud Museum London 2018, Travelling Companions  Cambridge 2020. www.judygoldhill.com

Fay Ballard is a contemporary artist whose studio practice is centred on drawing, underpinned by an interest in psychoanalysis. Her recent work was exhibited in London and Leeds in solo shows, and recently in two collaborative exhibitions with Judy Goldhill: ‘Breathe’ at the Freud Museum (2018) and ‘Travelling Companions’ at the University of Cambridge (2020-1). Fay was a visiting artist at Hammersmith Hospital (2017-18) and sits on the Imperial Health Arts committee delivering arts programmes to patients across five London hospitals. Fay speaks regularly at London art schools. Her work is held by HM The Queen, HRH The Prince of Wales, The Prince’s Foundation, Imperial Health, Royal College of Physicians, Winsor & Newton and Murray Edwards College Cambridge. www.fayballard.com

Amelie Taylor is a producer, musician and dancer. She founded Expressions Of Love and Loss to celebrate the therapeutic role that creativity can play as we grieve, working with artists and bereaved individuals to create unique, meaningful and original pieces in memory of those we have loved and lost. 

This is a follow up event expanding on the content from last years Arts Week discussion Mending the Psyche: Art as Reparation.

About
This event in-person at Birkbeck's School of Arts, as part of Arts Week 2022. Communication about this event will be sent from messenger@bbk.ac.uk. Do check your Spam/Junk/Other inbox if you are looking for emails from this address.

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