Renata SALECL

My secondment is Paris consisted from three parts of collection of data on the issue of ignorance and denial in contemporary society:

1.    With the help of the archive and literature available in the Shoah Monument library, I collected data on how denial and ignorance have been historically linked to traumatic social events. Here, examples of Holocaust denial were of utmost value for my research.
2.    In discussion with French psychoanalysts and philosophers, I collected data about, on the one hand, individual’s strategies of denial, negation and ignorance that psychoanalysts observe in their practice, and on the other hand, I collected data on theoretical writings on these issues that exist in French theory.
3.    I observed attempts in the urban space to counter people’s ignorance. Street artists, graffiti, creation of new public spaces were looked as examples of how people try to make other’s to pay attention and thus exist their own ignorance.
The result of my research has been collection of material which will form the basis of a book. I have also created a scenario for an art intervention in public space that will take place in October in Ljubljana and in which I will participate as a theorist, together with contemporary trained dancers under the choreography of Mateja Bucar.