I’ll be hosting an artists talk by Anna Walker at Stroud Valley Arts this Friday (September 20th). Anna is an artist, writer and researcher working in multi-media. She has been exploring trauma in her art’s practice for many years, researching how the body responds to overwhelming traumatic and stressful situations and how it reorganises itself to cope with or manage it. The experience of trauma creates a tension in the body that ruptures the functioning of ‘normal’ memory schemas, whether in an attempt to forget or an effort to manage the memory.
Through video, text and sound, Anna investigates the interaction between states of knowing and not knowing, acknowledging and the refusal to acknowledge, and the endeavour to illuminate the relationships between previously unrelated events, structures, perceptions and actions, and to explore cultural trauma, social responsibility and political action.
The talk will take place at SVA, 4 John Street, Stroud between 5.30 and 7.30 pm. £5 on the door.