Thank you for this piece. I didn’t do an arts degree but I noticed this in the spoken word scene when I used to take part in slams. I could always tell who would win based on what bad/traumatic thing they revealed in their poems. I found it hard to watch and not a great encouragement of art itself. I always felt there should be a resident therapist waiting on the sidelines for all these revelations and the impacts of sharing them to an audience often without much reaction or validation.
Thank you so much for sharing, Catriona! It seems like its an issue in arts spaces all round – I think maybe the scale tips too far sometimes when it comes to the idea of art as therapy/catharsis. Also I think it maybe has something to do with the feminist notion of 'the personal is political'. I also think there should be a nearby therapist, and perhaps educators/facilitators need to place more emphasis on *not* creating this type of work as a default. Thanks so much for commenting!
Thank you for this piece. I didn’t do an arts degree but I noticed this in the spoken word scene when I used to take part in slams. I could always tell who would win based on what bad/traumatic thing they revealed in their poems. I found it hard to watch and not a great encouragement of art itself. I always felt there should be a resident therapist waiting on the sidelines for all these revelations and the impacts of sharing them to an audience often without much reaction or validation.
Thank you so much for sharing, Catriona! It seems like its an issue in arts spaces all round – I think maybe the scale tips too far sometimes when it comes to the idea of art as therapy/catharsis. Also I think it maybe has something to do with the feminist notion of 'the personal is political'. I also think there should be a nearby therapist, and perhaps educators/facilitators need to place more emphasis on *not* creating this type of work as a default. Thanks so much for commenting!