| There is a trend in social anthropology to analyze disturbing scenes in art as insensitive portrayals of places, people, and history to discuss important issues of representation and identity formation. This analytical trend, however, limits discussion as it silences the critical elements of terrifying and unsettling detail in visual art. In this study, through an ethnography of four artists and the uneasy content of their work (mixed media drawing, a graphic novel, painting, and dance), I examine the affective dimensions of trauma related to civil war, genocide, and torture. Bringing attention to the unsettling roles of somatic memory, fear, pain, suffering, and visuality in the language of art, my analysis addresses how the art explored in this research provides spectators the opportunity to imagine what living with trauma related to political violence feels like. I argue that their art generates a psychophysical exchange of haptic space between artist, art, and spectator. |
