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Connecting Conversations
David Blandy in conversation with Valerie Sinason
Presented by in association with Connecting Conversations
Mon 18 Jul 2011, 6:00pm
Free Word Lecture Theatre
Filmmaker David Blandy meets psychoanalyst Valerie Sinason to screen his latest film Child of the Atom and to discuss making the work, memory and family legends in relation to historical traumas. Inspired by Blandy's grandfather's belief that the atomic bombing of Hiroshima saved his life when he was a POW held by the Japanese, Child of the Atom revolves around footage of Blandy and his daughter visiting Hiroshima for the first time together. Attempting to literally and symbolically come to terms with their personal connection to the bombing of the city, Blandy intersperses scenes of modern Hiroshima with flashback sequences of apocalyptic anime, featuring the film's eponymous character who must decide if he is hero or villain.
David Blandy lives and works in London. He uses video, performance and comics to address how identity is constructed, investigating our relationship to the mass media and cultural heritage. Blandy studied Fine Art at Chelsea College of Art (1995-98) and did his MA at the Slade School of Fine Art (2001-3). He has exhibited widely both in the UK and abroad and has had solo presentations at Baltic, Gateshead; Spike Island, Bristol; Turner Contemporary Margate; and 176, London. Blandy won the Times/South Bank Show Breakthrough Award in 2010. He is represented by Seventeen Gallery, London and his films are distributed by LUX.
Valerie Sinason is a poet, child psychotherapist and adult psychoanalyst specialising in trauma and disability. Her most recent edited works are Attachment, Trauma and Multiplicity: Working with Dissociative Identity Disorder and poetry book Night-shift. She is Director of the Clinic for Dissociative Studies, Honorary Consultant Psychotherapist of the Cape Town Child Guidance Clinic and President of the Institute for Psychotherapy and Disability.