An interactive exhibition which explores the relationship between medicine, memory and the treatment process has opened at the University’s Victoria Gallery & Museum (VG&M).
Phantom Limb, which is part of the Liverpool Biennial 2016 Fringe, is an exhibition of around 20 works by nine artists, most of whom work from their own personal experiences of operations and illnesses.
It focuses on medicine and the psychological impact of the treatment process, in particular how memory physically and mentally affects illness, how pain impacts on memory and cognitive functioning and how memory impacts on pain physically (e.g. phantom pain) and mentally through trauma. It also considers the effect memory has on mental illness.
The exhibition is a partnership project between award-winning artist, Euan Gray, and Dr Daniel Whistler, from the University’s Centre for Health, Arts and Science.
VG&M Curator, Moira Lindsay, said: “This exhibition aims to encourage visitors to reflect and engage contributing their own experiences of treatment processes. As it deals with an almost universal theme, the aim is to move, challenge and unsettle the audience but importantly it aims to bring together and learn from those suffering with long term conditions and illnesses.“
A series of public reflective workshops will accompany the exhibition bringing together academics, health professionals, patients and students to consider theoretical questions provoked by the exhibition.
Phantom Limb runs until Saturday December 3rd 2016. For more information, please visit http://vgm.liverpool.ac.uk/
Liverpool Biennial 2016, a free festival of newly commissioned contemporary art from around the world, takes place across the city’s galleries, unused buildings, public spaces and online from 9 July until 16 October 2016.
Phantom Limb is generously supported by Arts Council England Grants for the Arts www.artscouncil.org.uk
Curator, Euan Gray, with image by Hannah Wilke, Intra-Venus Series #6, February 19, 1992, 1992-93. Courtesy Donald and Helen Goddard and Ronald Feldman Fine Arts, New York
