Today, a trauma is a much inflated term. It is invoked across many domains of our experience, both personal and institutional. Its increasing prevalence, however, has not been accompanied by a corresponding growth in the cognitive value of what is now associated with trauma. Rather than a greater conceptual depth, we are witnessing an erosion and diffusion of the meanings attached to this metaphorical and often abstractly understood term.
Our concern, however, will not be with definitions of trauma, although its Greek etymology implies a “wound”, “piercing”, or “bodily injury”. Instead, we explore the ways in which what we perceive as traumatic is processed by means of different modes of expression. We are going to examine the diverse languages and forms capable of describing, engaging with, representing, and reconstructing the psychophysical experiences arising from a wound that has been inflicted, carried, remains alive, and is in the process of healing. Our aim is not to subject these experiences to psychotherapy as we cannot be certain whether, or in what ways, different forms of art are capable of offering closure to the processes associated with traumatic experience. Rather, we will focus on what we refer to as the wound process (rather than wound processing), exploring and engaging with a variety of forms of expression and representation. We will seek to employ different aesthetic frameworks that enable us to open what has remained closed and to acknowledge that the traumatic constitutes an integral part of our experience, part of what we recognise as our identity, or as our history carried and transmitted across generations. We assume that the title Encounters with Trauma will acquire its full significance during the debate, in the process of building relationships and fostering integration. After all, it is precisely through encounter, integration, and relationship that trauma works, reveals, and manifests itself in art, connecting with the living, embodied, aesthetic, and psychic aspects of human existence.
participants: Aleksandra Kubiak, Melisa Maras, Mira Marcinów
Maciej Duda – psychotherapist, professor of the University of Szczecin. Author of four books, e.g. Dogmat płci. Polska wojna z gender (The Gender Dogma. Polish War On Gender, 2016), Emancypanci i emancypatorzy. Mężczyźni wspierający emancypację Polek w drugiej połowie XIX i na początku XX wieku (Emancipated Women and Emancipators. Men Supporting the Emancipation of Polish Women in the Second Half of the 19th and the Early 20th Century, 2017). Scholarship holder of Poland’s National Science Centre (FUGA) and of the Ministry of Science and Higher Education. Since 2021 editor-in-chief of Czas Kultury (parity position shared with editor Lucyna Leśniewska). In 2025 he debuted as a prose writer with Głód (Hunger, W.A.B.).
Aleksandra Kubiak – interdisciplinary artist engaged in the areas of performance, film, theatre, text, and social activities, academic lecturer. Between 2001 and 2013 along with Karolina Wiktor worked as the Grupa Sędzia Główny. Since 2010 has practised on her own, focusing on an autobiographical series and relational action. Her art examines the social efficacy of art and possible transformation of liminal experiences through artistic practices.
Melisa Maras – certified psychoanalytic psychotherapist of the Polish Psychoanalytic Psychotherapy Society (PTPP), editor-in-chief of the quarterly IDioMY. Psychoanaliza i życie społeczne, cultural studies scholar, with ample experience in the so-called helping professions and a substantial artistic and academic-teaching record.
Mira Marcinów – philosopher, psychologist, and writer. Works at the Institute of Philosophy and Sociology of the Polish Academy of Sciences in Warsaw. Co-founder and former director of the Centre for Psychoanalytic Thought at the Institute of Philosophy and Sociology of the Polish Academy of Sciences. Author of e.g. the books Historia polskiego szaleństwa (A History of Polish Madness), for which she was nominated for the Poznań Literary Award, and the prose work Bezmatek, for which she received the Paszport Polityki Award and was nominated for the Nike Literary Award. Experiments with dance, theatre, and visual arts.
