Giving Name to the Nameless

Art credit: “History” by Maggie Fishman

In her essay “Poetry is not a Luxury,” Audre Lorde writes: “Through poetry we give name to the nameless so it can be thought.” Lorde’s teachings speak of art as the bridge to what we feel but cannot see or say, which, once made accessible through imagery and language, changes our vision, capacities, and actions. 

In this salon, Anna Motz and Maggie Fishman are in conversation about their shared passions and experiences with artistic and therapeutic processes through which people give name to the nameless, and in so doing transform their experience in the world.

Underlying this conversation are questions such as: What is the role of language and expression in healing/transformation? How do we engage with trauma, pain, and violence to transform it? How do we stop violence from being passed on? How do we understand a continuum of violence and our place on it? How do conscious and unconscious processes interact?  What structures enable traumatic memories to surface without overwhelming?  How do we come to know ourselves through artmaking? 

Motz, a forensic psychotherapist and author, and Fishman, an artist, anthropologist, and educator, will discuss their work in prison therapy sessions, artist studios, and NYC public school classrooms. They will explore what the processes of engaging the unknown look and feel like in these spaces, in the presence of institutional and internalized forces that keep this nameless underground.

Photo credits: Anna Motz by David Fisher.

This event will be recorded.