Mending the Psyche: Art as Reparation

Fay Ballard and Judy Goldhill

16 May to 29 July 2022
Peltz Gallery
Birkbeck University of London, 43 Gordon Square London WC1H 0PD

Curated by Carly Robinson (PhD candidate, Birkbeck School of Arts) and Dr Eli Pimentel, Mending the Psyche: Art as Reparation presents new and existing works by artists Fay Ballard and Judy Goldhill, who collaborated on ‘Breathe’ exhibition at the Freud Museum in 2018. The curators write:

Taking ‘Breathe’ as the departure point, Mending the Psyche explores the notions of ‘overcoming’ and ‘becoming’ in their works, specifically as these notions relate to processes of grief and grieving, and the health implications of these processes.

Mending the Psyche: Art as Reparation challenges the socially constructed narrative of grief and mourning as a time-limited experience, where social norms and the capitalist emphasis on productivity restrict the process of grieving to a definable period of time. In contrast, the exhibition highlights the ongoing mourning of the subject in process, emphasising creativity as a mode of reparative becoming.

There will be a full related events programme.

Funded with a grant from Wellcome Trust and Birkbeck University of London.

www.bbk.ac.uk