This discussion forcused on the relationship between writing, artists, and displacement. There was an assemblage of different pieces, arranged into three categories: space, place, and outside.

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Introduction written by Eleonora Narbone:

The concept of home, of belonging, the desire to be part of something is a feeling that’s plagued many of us, at one point or another in life. It is perhaps one of the most commonly uncomfortable feelings that we experience as children, teenagers, adults. In the wider world, due to the everchanging and cruel political situation around us, the possibility of displacement is a harsh reality all of us must confront. This week we’ll be discussing the relationship between displacement, artmaking and home.

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Questions considered:

1. What is the relationship between displacement and art?
   
2. How is displacement (in a physical but also emotional sense) at the heart of writing (fiction, literature, diaries etc)?
3. What’s your definition of displacement? What are the different ways you can think of the concept (literally deprived of place in the physical sense, the psychological response to feeling ‘out of place,’ etc)?
4. Within the pieces selected, is a sense of belonging always disrupted by displacement? And if/once displacement occurs, how do the subjects, narratives and points of view offered reckon with how to live with its aftermath?
5. When feeling displaced from a sense or place of comfort, do you tend to read more literature, consume more art, or distance yourself from it?
6. Do you need to physically displace yourself in order to write (i.e. exit a zone of comfort)? Or perhaps the other way around?

SPACE

An explanation of the physical process of displacement, from Khan Academy:

https://www.khanacademy.org/science/physics/one-dimensional-motion/displacement-velocity-time/a/what-is-displacement

The Body in and as Space by Anthony Gormley: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K4hRYyJG44o

Conversation with Anthony Gormley: https://ocula.com/magazine/conversations/antony-gormley/

Exhibit Materials on Shirin Neshat: https://www.thebroad.org/shirinneshat

Conversation with Shirin Neshat: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1DShqgSqPPE



PLACE

'My Place' (a video essay) by Miguel García Otero: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fLWP_dv6pfI

'A Literature of Place' by Barry Lopez

The Baron in the Trees (Chapter 1) by Italo Calvino: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iwaNL2Uff44

Selected Poems by Guiseppe Ungaretti: https://allpoetry.com/Giuseppe-Ungaretti

OUTSIDE

Girl, Woman, Other (first three chapters) by Bernadine Evaristo, review attached: https://www.theguardian.com/books/2019/may/08/girl-woman-other-by-bernardine-evaristo-review

Great Women Artists Podcast on Louise Bourgeois: https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/charlie-porter-on-louise-bourgeois-anne-truitt-sarah/id1480259187?i=1000537667536

Poem Brut #103 - Isolation by JT Welsch: https://www.3ammagazine.com/3am/poembrut103/

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