Seen/Unseen: Archival Absence, Photography and Trauma in N.L.

Tuesday, Feb. 27, 12-1 p.m.

SN-4087

Kate Lahey (she/they) holds a PhD from the University of Toronto. She is a postdoctoral fellow and course instructor at Memorial University. Her dissertation, At the Mouth of the River: Shame, Secrecy and Intergenerational Trauma, engages theories of intergenerational trauma to explore the psychic dynamics of loss and memory in Newfoundland. Dr. Lahey is an award-winning visual arts critic, musician and activist.

In this presentation, Dr. Lahey considers how trauma transmits across generations through embodied and relational channels in photographs (or their absence) from archives. The haunting intangibility of intergenerational trauma emerges as both silence and deep psychic knowing. Using the works of Frantz Fanon and Silvan Tomkins, she asks how shame, as a component of trauma, is relational and embodied. Further, how do photographic images capture and erase? This inquiry offers critical insights into the sociopolitical stakes and the individual experience of trauma as it relates to archival photography, mental illness and disability in NL.

Presented by Department of Gender Studies

Event Listing 2024-02-27 12:00:00 2024-02-27 13:00:00 America/St_Johns Seen/Unseen: Archival Absence, Photography and Trauma in N.L. Kate Lahey (she/they) holds a PhD from the University of Toronto. She is a postdoctoral fellow and course instructor at Memorial University. Her dissertation, At the Mouth of the River: Shame, Secrecy and Intergenerational Trauma, engages theories of intergenerational trauma to explore the psychic dynamics of loss and memory in Newfoundland. Dr. Lahey is an award-winning visual arts critic, musician and activist. In this presentation, Dr. Lahey considers how trauma transmits across generations through embodied and relational channels in photographs (or their absence) from archives. The haunting intangibility of intergenerational trauma emerges as both silence and deep psychic knowing. Using the works of Frantz Fanon and Silvan Tomkins, she asks how shame, as a component of trauma, is relational and embodied. Further, how do photographic images capture and erase? This inquiry offers critical insights into the sociopolitical stakes and the individual experience of trauma as it relates to archival photography, mental illness and disability in NL. SN-4087 Department of Gender Studies