Caring for Archives

Hear our artist-in-residence Sena Başöz discuss the process of creating her new performance commission with writer and academic Dr Davina Quinlivan.

In this conversation, Sena will explore her performative practice and relationship to the archive. Concerned with a future impacted by climate change, her latest research from the Wellcome Collection archives explores the role of the body practicing ‘care’ through the archival process, both as a means of healing and regenerating new futures.

Slalom is commissioned by Block Universe in partnership with Delfina Foundation and SAHA Association, and will show at the Wellcome Collection from the 26-28 May 2022. For more information and tickets please click here.

Biography

Sena Başöz (Turkey) is an artist and filmmaker based in Istanbul. Her work investigates healing processes after cases of trauma focusing on regeneration possibilities of what is frozen, dead, stale or lost. The organism’s self-repair and the balance nature obtains in the long run constitute the backbone of the narratives she employs in her works.

Sena is a current resident at Delfina Foundation. She was also in-residence in winter 2022, during which she first initiated this performance work.

Dr Davina Quinlivan is a writer and academic. Her research explores the correspondences between film, philosophy and literature, especially the representation of the body and the senses. She is the author of several monographs including Filming the Body in Crisis: Trauma, Healing and Hopefulness (Palgrave, 2015), The Place of Breath in Cinema (EUP, 2012), The Spirit of the Beehive (BFI Film Classics, forthcoming) and Joanna Hogg: New British Art Cinema, Female Identity and Aesthetics (EUP, forthcoming). Her work has featured as part of programmed, public events at The Wallace Museum, The Serpentine Gallery, The Tavistock Clinic London, Birds Eye View (Reclaim the Frame) and the British Film Institute.

With artist-in-residence Sena Başöz