Meaning
For this lecture on 'Meaning' I am going to talk about the relationship between meaning, trauma and violence, through 'September, A History Painting' by Gerhard Richter, which was painted in 2005 just 4 years after September 11th, 2001 - or what has come to be known quite simply as 9/11.
Lesson preparation:
In preparation for 'Meaning' please sit with* the images below; choose one and write 500 words on what the image means to you. Be critical and contextualise the work while reflecting on how the image affects you and your body. On the surface the meaning maybe obvious, but as you sit, explore the deeper relationship between understanding and the body.
I have chosen images that ask you to look, see and listen in an endeavour to confront the tenuous materiality of the body. The images are both staged and un-staged (in as much as they can be in the context of a framed space in time). They create a site of indeterminacy where both the material quality of flesh and bone, and the clean and proper borders of the subject cede to a liminality that at times denotes the precarious socio-political status of bodies. Each photograph is asking you to find its meaning. All the images have been created by female artists/photographers in contrast to the Richter painting, 'September'.
I have chosen images that ask you to look, see and listen in an endeavour to confront the tenuous materiality of the body. The images are both staged and un-staged (in as much as they can be in the context of a framed space in time). They create a site of indeterminacy where both the material quality of flesh and bone, and the clean and proper borders of the subject cede to a liminality that at times denotes the precarious socio-political status of bodies. Each photograph is asking you to find its meaning. All the images have been created by female artists/photographers in contrast to the Richter painting, 'September'.
* Sitting with an image, requires time and space. It is a deep listening to yourself, your breath and what the image means to you. It is to come into contact with the image, to not shrink from it or look away. It is to understand your relationship to the image and therefore to yourself. This will inevitably involve your history, your culture, your gender and your experiences in and of the world. Take all into consideration.