The Work.
Citation Summary:
Stidworthy, I. T. (2015), The Work, Exhibition, multi-part installation (new commission) The Work, IWM Contemporary, Imperial War Museum, London (4/06/15 - 06/09/15).
- Submitting institution
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Liverpool John Moores University
- Unit of assessment
- 32 - Art and Design: History, Practice and Theory
- Output identifier
- 32IS2
- Type
- M - Exhibition
- Venue(s)
- IWM Contemporary, Imperial War Museum
- Open access status
- Out of scope for open access requirements
- Month of first exhibition
- May
- Year of first exhibition
- 2015
- URL
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- Supplementary information
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- Request cross-referral to
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- Output has been delayed by COVID-19
- No
- COVID-19 affected output statement
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- Forensic science
- No
- Criminology
- No
- Interdisciplinary
- No
- Number of additional authors
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0
- Research group(s)
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1 - Contemporary Art Lab
- Proposed double-weighted
- No
- Reserve for an output with double weighting
- No
- Additional information
- The Work is a multi-part installation invited by IWM Contemporary for a solo exhibition in 2015 at Imperial War Museum, London. It built on long-term research investigating different forms of language and non-verbal communication, and explored relationships between voice, language, memory and experience, through the lens of PTSD. It drew on research into trauma and memory studies involving veterans and staff of charity Combat Stress, the Dept of Memory Studies, Loughborough University, and police specialists in Cognitive Interview technique. It contributed to current debates about trauma, PTSD and conflict, and their visual representation in the media as well as in contemporary art. It raised public awareness among large, diverse audiences (43,000). Several IWM invigilators are ex-military retired with PTSD, who specifically requested to invigilate the exhibition, to actively engage with audiences, which included many school groups. The Work includes words from recordings of two military veterans with PTSD speaking about their experiences, and physical materials related to the contexts of their trauma. Trauma overwhelms language and confronts us with the limits of visual or verbal representation. Through embodiment and evocation, The Work sought different channels - side-stepping direct representation - for engaging with highly sensitive subject-matter which is heavily discussed and depicted in the media, often in objectifying or spectacularising ways. The installation makes unusual use of sound technology: specially fabricated high-powered transducers resonate the veterans’ voices through physical materials: MOD security glass, a military satellite dish. These figured as large sculptural objects and as (literally) embodied language and voice, evoking the capacity for physical materials to embody traces of human experience (for those with PTSD, potentially triggering flashbacks with sometimes devastating effect). Public events included an in-conversation with curator Sarah Bevan (04/7/15), several curators talks, workshops and tours run by the education team.
- Author contribution statement
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- Non-English
- No
- English abstract
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