WOMEN, MEMORY AND PSYCHOLOGICAL SCAPES

Organizers: Heather Leier and Meghan Pohlod

 

Participants:

Heather Leier, Meghan Pohold, Grace Sippy, Marilene Oliver, Angela Snieder, Tracy Templeton, Jacqueline Barrett, Carrie Lingscheit, Winnie Daulbaugh, Allison Rosh, Heather Lee Birdsong, Raeleen Kao, Darian Goldin Stahl, Danielle Burns, Myken Mcdowell

ABSTRACT

Trauma can directly alter our psyche and in reflection of the current political climate, normalization of trauma is a major risk. Intimate phenomenological events trigger trace memories that in turn create imprints in the psyche. Traceable memory that is recollected is unstable and not always recognizable the same way twice. In moments of recollected trauma triggered by image, even the body can physically react and habitual body patterns can literally force the memory within us to respond in some way. In January 2017 the Women’s March on Washington garnered international participation where physical and cyber scapes were occupied by all genders, races and cultural backgrounds. It is on this large scale that change can be made, but it is also through the documents we create consciously and subconsciously that we influence each other’s understandings and therefore influence how we interact with one another. Through trauma, the landscape of the psyche is altered but what happens when you witness traumatic events through newsfeeds, mass media, and marketing on daily basis? Does a major part of our psyche adapt? How does trauma change the way we move through the world? How is our traumatic memory reflected through the things, people, and places that we surround ourselves with? It is through this lense of altered psychological states, that we move through this world on a daily basis and respond to the idea of an Altered Landscape.

 

This portfolio will allow the private to become public through artistic expression and will create a space in which the voice of women is imperative. We expect this portfolio to include intimate narratives from different points of view as well as broad responses to effects of memory on the psychological landscape. What the Women’s March and simultaneous happenings reminded us of is the importance for different avenues of expression and agitation both big and small. Women still face a lack of agency over their bodies and health, there is still a lack of female voices in positions of power, and women continue to be underrepresented in museum collections and exhibition rosters. These are not issues that will be solved overnight, so we must continue to talk, protest, stand up, and make work that enforces our rights and cultivates positive conversation about the multiplicities of our experience as women.