Image: 'Nana's House' by Deba Salim
The idea of Winnicott Wednesdays formed when a group of artists training to become art psychotherapists at Goldsmiths University began to meet most weeks (usually on a Wednesday) to debrief on their personal and collective experiences of the course; to try to make sense of psychoanalysis and art; and to attempt to reconcile the ongoing, often conflicting nature of the dual roles of artist and art therapist. As we negotiated our quite often baffling emotional reactions and responses to the subject matter of the training we began to form friendships... these regular meetings became known as ‘Winnicott Wednesdays’. The group is an open collective of like minded individuals working together to create art and continue our discourse.
The subtitle of our forthcoming group exhibition, The Unthought Known, is a phrase first coined by British Psychoanalyst Christopher Bollas more than 20 years ago, in his book, The Shadow of the Object. The Unthought Known is experienced through the senses – it’s a visceral memory, a felt memory of our encounter with the first maternal holding environment. We are steeped in powerful responses in relation to our first environment: it shapes who we are. It is what is innately familiar to us... what we feel in our bones as it were... but we can’t ‘think’ about it… sometimes there are no words...
The subtitle of our forthcoming group exhibition, The Unthought Known, is a phrase first coined by British Psychoanalyst Christopher Bollas more than 20 years ago, in his book, The Shadow of the Object. The Unthought Known is experienced through the senses – it’s a visceral memory, a felt memory of our encounter with the first maternal holding environment. We are steeped in powerful responses in relation to our first environment: it shapes who we are. It is what is innately familiar to us... what we feel in our bones as it were... but we can’t ‘think’ about it… sometimes there are no words...
