Symbolic Prose and Personal Politics (HELEN JOHNSON)

Guest artist HELEN JOHNSON joins JILLIAN KNIPE for this final episode of Series 5, to discuss her work via 'The Birds' by Tarjei Vesaas. Published originally in 1957, then by Penguin Random House in 2019, this short novel describes the relationship between Hege and her younger, mentally challenged brother Mattis. With a sense of non-judgemental simplicity and acute sensitivity, we join the siblings as they negotiate everyday life in partial isolation and on the edge of something happening. HELEN and Jillian's conversation encompasses lightning, tenderness, siblings, gullibility, hiding, tapestry, holding, frustration, anguish, excavation, metaphors, equality, masking, knitting needles, dream worlds, shattered trees, portals, body punctures, art therapy, white supremacy, honest thieves, cartography lines, blinding flies, Oedipus complex, intergenerational privilege, psychotic structure, architectural blueprints, birthing shit, monetising colonialisation, not being othered, the weight of the work, creating a space for healing, writing being like a drawing, and a lot of Lacanian psychotherapy - a real learning experience !   HELEN JOHNSON helenjohnson.net 'Opening' Pilar Corrias Savile Row til 6 Jan 2024 'Agency' Pilar Corrias 2019 'Warm Ties' ICA 2017   ARTISTS  Aleksandra Waliszewska Aliza Nisenbaum  Bridget Riley Christina Quarles Denzil Forrester Fred Williams Georgiana Houghton Joy Labinjo Judy Watson Katie Pratt Laura Owens Maja Ruznic Marcus Coates 'The Directors' Artangel Melanie Jackson Nicole Eisenman Njideka Akunyili Crosby  Paola Balla Rosie Mullan Shanti Panchal Yhonnie Scarce AUTHORS + BOOKS Darian Leader 'The New Black: Mourning, Melancholia and Depression' 2008 Jackie Wullschläger 'Monet: The Resless Vision' 2023 Jennifer Higgie 'The Other Side: A Journey into Women, Art and the Spirit World' 2023 Karl Ove Knausgaard National Gallery of Australia 'Know My Name: Australian Women Artists Since 1900' 2021 Part 1 2022 Part 2 CURATORS + ART HISTORIANS Helen Molesworth 'Dialogues' David Zwirner Sarah McCrory THEORISTS + ANALYSTS + ACTIVISTS Anna Freud Donald Winnicott Jacques Lacan Joy Shaverien Melanie Klein Meriki Onus Sigmund Freud Shirley Sharon-Zisser 'What Would a Lacanian Art Therapy Look Like' Walter Benjamin Wilfred Bion GALLERIES + ART INSTITUTIONS Glasgow International ICA Institute of Contemporary Art Kunstverein in Hamburg Kingsgate Project Space Latrobe University MCA NSW Museum of Contemporary Art Australia NGV National Gallery of Victoria Pilar Corrias SeMA Seoul Museum of Art Tate Galleries