Communicating Pain: a collage workshop with Danne Jobin

 Thursday 29 September (5-6pm)

'In her text, The Body in Pain, Elaine Scarry writes that ‘physical pain does not simply resist language but actively destroys it, bringing about an immediate reversion to a state anterior to language.' An episode of illness breaks down language and consequently limits one's capacity to communicate pain to oneself and others. The experience, although profound, becomes unintelligible. Turning to other creative means of self-expression can offer a different slant, enabling meaning to emerge from that very site of fragmentation. Artist Rebeka Elizegi describes collage as ‘a hybrid language in itself’, one that ‘feeds on different kinds of elements and is made out of diversity, but at the same time [...] allows artists to create dialects and grammars with their own personalities.’ Similarly, Blanca Ortiga states that collage finds its structure ‘in the unstable’, enabling ‘a relational way of thinking [...] from which the unexpected emerges.’

This participative workshop will explore collage in relation to illness and disability to reflect on the ways cut and paste can join up disparate elements to express complex realities. Through collage, you will be encouraged to address altered states and distorted temporalities, the psychological and bodily sensations of illness, and the discrepancies between personal experience and outsiders' perception of illness.

Participants will need scissors, glue and magazines or other printed matter. Mixed-media approaches are also welcome.

Bio

Danne Jobin holds a PhD in English from the University of Kent and has an interest in trans & nonbinary poetics and collage. Danne’s poems have been published in Magma, harana poetry, Datableed and Tenebrae. They have read at the festival Poetry in Aldeburgh as well as for the 87 Press and Datableeder. Danne vlogs regularly on their YouTube channel Poetology and organises workshops on collage poems, poetic rituals and queer poetics. They also support writers and artists as a creativity coach. https://www.dannejobin.com/