Drawing on the work of artists, writers, and critical theorists this one-day symposium explores creative and critical approaches to autobiography, biography and memoir.
 
Intimacy Unguarded examines how autobiography operates as a creative space, the use of biography in contemporary art, and the persuasive voice of memoir as a bridge between factual events and imagination.

Aiming to acknowledge the power and function of the subjective as material, this symposium provides a platform for determining what is at stake for artists and writers 
who articulate personal, inner worlds to an audience today. Whether in the form of autobiography or memoir, the overlap and simultaneity of intimacy and publicity, questions of authenticity, truth, memory and the reconstruction of events are paramount. 

Given biography’s potential as a reflective document and elegy, Intimacy Unguarded also considers its adoption and adaptation by contemporary artists as a non-didactic fragmented form.

Speakers:

Jon Cairns (writer and curator)

Diana Caine (neuropsychologist)

Adrian Rifkin (writer)

Lindsay Seers (artist)

Emma Talbot (artist)

Organised by Joanne Morra and Emma Talbot from the School of Art at Central Saint Martins, this 2-year research project is in collaboration with Journal of Visual Culture, IAVC (International Association of Visual Culture) and POWAP (Practices of Writing and Publishing Research Group).