Intimacy Unguarded:
Autobiography, Biography, Memoir
A one-day symposium on 13 February 2014
Speakers:
Jon Cairns (writer and curator)
Diana Caine (neuropsychologist)
Adrian Rifkin (writer and artist)
Lindsay Seers (artist)
Emma Talbot (artist)
Drawing on the work of artists, writers, and critical theorists this one-day symposium
explores creative and critical approaches to autobiography, biography and memoir.
Intimacy Unguarded examines how autobiography operates as a creative space, the use
of biography in contemporary art, and the persuasive voice of memoir as a bridge
between factual events and imagination.
Aiming to acknowledge the power and function of the subjective as material, this
symposium provides a platform for determining what is at stake for artists and writers
who articulate personal, inner worlds to an audience today. Whether in the form of
autobiography or memoir, the overlap and simultaneity of intimacy and publicity,
questions of authenticity, truth, memory and the reconstruction of events are paramount.
Given biography’s potential as a reflective document and elegy, Intimacy Unguarded also
considers its adoption and adaptation by contemporary artists as a non-didactic
fragmented form.
Organised by Joanne Morra and Emma Talbot from the School of Art at Central Saint
Martins, this 2-year research project is in collaboration with Journal of Visual Culture,
IAVC (International Association of Visual Culture) and POWAP (Practices of Writing and
Publishing Research Group).
Central Saint Martins, Granary Building, 1 Granary Square, Kings Cross, N1C 4AA, 10:304:30pm, Room E002
The event is free, but booking is essential: Please email Nina Trivedi
(nina.trivedi@network.rca.ac.uk)