The art object acts as a site of encounter, a space where the structural and historical trauma experienced by women can be transmitted. This encounter prompts further encounters/conversations among the artist and the world, the artist and the object, the artist and the ‘Other’, and artists and viewers (Ettinger, 2016), in which women’s narratives can be disseminated. Art is qualified to represent trauma, whether cognizant or unconscious, it possesses great potential to form new representations which highlight many traumatic elements entrenched in social, cultural and historical writings and practices (Andermahr & Pellicer-Ortín, 2013).
This honours research project is an exploration of self, of internal body, of matriarchal links to self via trauma and of how both inherited and lived trauma experiences manifest in self. On a broader scale this research seeks witness, to be seen and heard, to resonate and to capture a conversation between viewer and self. The normalisation of all types of violence against women and the weight of this is carried from generation to generation. The currency is pain, the debt is silence and it is accrued decade upon decade.
Informed by practice and underpinned by theory, various media and techniques have been explored to convey a narrative of inter-generational female trauma. Drawing on traditionally feminine expressions of creativity and using the body as metaphor, there is juxtaposition that speaks to both the personal and the larger structural experiences of what it is to be female in a society that privileges masculinity. By locating the artist herself within practical investigation, a personal narrative is drawn out.
The unknowable thing as Lacan terms it, becomes object as a source of mediation for trauma between the artist and viewer, creating a visual post-memory of a language only spoken by the subconscious. Below are a range of objects created during this research (which is ongoing) and each forms a part of a whole (when installed in its entirety).
References:
Ettinger B 2016, ‘Art as the Transport-Station of Trauma’, in Y Ataria et al (ed.), Interdisciplinary Handbook of Trauma and Culture, Springer International Publishing, New York, pp.151-160.
Andermahr A & Pellicer-Ortín S 2013, Trauma Narratives and Herstory, Palgrave Macmillan, England.