Speakers

Ed Attlee 

An Introduction to Agorophobia

Ed is a writer and researcher currently undertaking a PhD at the London Consortium. She is writing about dream spaces, laundry practices and the space of the home. She has written for Time Out, Intelligence Squared, Gut and Kicking Against the Pricks and has had poetry published in Poetry & Audience and Trans Script. She is co-founder of Nice Spread.

Octavia Bright 

Spaces of Violence in Pedro Almodovar's The Skin I live In

Octavia has a BA in Hispanic Studies from University College London, and an MPhil in European Literature and Culture from the University of Cambridge. She taught English language and culture at the Sorbonne in Paris, before returning to London to start her doctoral studies back at University College. Eroticism, visual art and the surreal have been consistent themes throughout her work, and although based in the Spanish department, her approach is consistently interdisciplinary. Her thesis focuses on eroticism in the films of Luis Buñuel, Pedro Almodóvar and Julio Medem.

Andrea Vesentini 

The House of Anxiety: The Frontiers of Domestic Inner Space in Suburban Post-War America

Andrea is a PhD student in Humanities and Cultural Studies at the London Consortium (Birkbeck, University of London), where he is currently researching suburban interior spaces in postwar America and their relationship with the outdoors. His project brings together architecture, film and popular culture. He graduated in American literature and culture from the University of Venice Ca' Foscari and studied at the Sapienza University of Rome, Georgia State University and the City College of the City University of New York. He is also a film critic for online magazines, and worked at the 2011 Venice Art Biennale curated by Bice Curiger.

Alex Widdowson 

Psychosis and Hospitalisation

Alex is an Artist/Animator specializing in 2D cell animation. His work often refers to personal history while also addressing themes of lurid expressionism and animated documentary. Reference to mental illness is present in much of his narrative work. The film Patients is a semi-autobiographic animated documentary which draws heavily on his experience of being sectioned during an episode of psychosis. The film took context in an anti-stigma campaign and was based on the premise that an accurate depiction of something strange and unfamiliar, such as psychosis, may help an audience develop empathy towards those who have been affected by it. Alex works from Sage Community Arts Space, an art therapy charity, where he has a residency.