Wunderblock: Exhibition and symposium on the history of the child's mind at the Freud Museum
Wunderblock - a new exhibition and symposium on the history of the child's mind at the Freud Museum
6th March - 26th May 2019
Symposium: 6th April, 9am-12.30pm https://www.freud.
Register online. For enquiries about the symposium contact Sarah Marks: s.marks@bbk.ac.uk
Drawing on historical research by the
Hidden Persuaders project at Birkbeck, University of London, artist
Emma Smith explores how child psychoanalysis and psychiatry sought to
influence, understand, and encourage children’s healthy development
after World War II. Smith’s artworks and interventions
interrogate some of this complex narrative to highlight the hidden
history of the child’s influence over the adult world.
Research into infant observation in psychoanalysis, the emergence of
child-centred education, and the anti-psychiatry movement, have all been
important in the exhibition’s development. So too have ongoing debates
over nature and nurture, benign and malign influence
over the child. The title Wunderblock comes from Sigmund Freud’s ‘A
Note Upon the “Mystic Writing Pad’”. A ‘Wunderblock’ is a toy used by
Freud to illustrate the workings of our unconscious, where memories are
stored and from where they may re-emerge. In the
exhibition, Smith takes this idea and uses it to imagine and uncover
the complexity of the child’s mind.
At a time when concern over the mental health and rights of children and
young people regularly makes the headlines, Wunderblock aims to provoke
debate and reflection. Taking historical research as a starting point,
the exhibition and the accompanying events
programme encourage you to consider and question your own beliefs in
relation to the current status of children in our society.
Wunderblock is curated by Rachel Fleming-Mulford, and is commissioned by
Birkbeck College, University of London for the Hidden Persuaders
Project, funded by the Wellcome Trust Public Engagement Fund.
Emma Smith is a visual artist based in the UK, who works
internationally. She has a social practice and creates public platforms
for experimentation, research and action through site-specific events
and installations. Smith’s work tests the boundaries
of human connectivity: relationship, communication, sense of place and
entanglement. Her work looks in particular at hidden forms of
connection: the intimate, the transient, the subconscious and the
invisible. Previous exhibitions and commissions include Tate
Modern, Barbican, Whitechapel Gallery, Bluecoat, Whitworth, ICA and
Arnolfini, UK, with international projects across the globe.
http://www.emma-smith.com/
The Hidden Persuaders project,
based at Birkbeck, University of London, examines ‘brainwashing’ in
and after the Cold War, exploring the roles, real and imagined, played
by psychologists, psychiatrists and psychoanalysts in this history. It
ask how these disciplines pictured tyranny
and freedom of mind, were drawn into ‘psy warfare’ and commerce, and
were mobilised in social and political critique.
http://www.bbk.ac.uk/
Events:
The exhibition is
accompanied by a series of events that consider the expertise of the
child, the voice of the teenager, and the politics of emphasis placed on
the influence of the mother:
Saturday 30 March, 12.30-2pm:
Feeding Time – an event by and for teenagers
Saturday 6 April, 9am-1pm: Hidden Persuaders Symposium
Saturday 6 April, 12pm-5pm: showings of films by teenagers from the 2018 Hidden Persuaders Schools Programme
Saturday 13 April, 10.45-11.30am:
The Children’s Group – an event for 0-4 year olds and their parents
Wednesday 1 May,
6pm-8pm: late opening and curators’ tours of exhibitions at Freud Museum
London (7pm) and Camden Arts Centre (6pm)
Wednesday 22 May, 7-8.30pm:
The Hidden Persuader – an evening of discussion with the artist and special guests
Fridays: 29 March, 26 April, 24 May:
Slow Hour – an hour each month when the Museum particularly
encourages families to visit Wunderblock (although families are always
welcome)
Related event:
Thursday 21 March, 6-7pm ‘Wellcome Library Insights’ at Wellcome
Collection: ‘Playing with the Invisible’ – the artist will discuss
archive material that helped inspire Wunderblock https://