Traumascapes Arts Festival 2025 | Artist talks: Traumascapes Arts Collective present the exhibition

The Traumascapes Arts Collective (CAT) was brought together to find individual and communal responses to the idea of a Living Archive of Survivorhood of Trauma (LAST). 12 artworks were published on The Lancet Psychiatry journal covers over 2024, navigating discussions on (empty) containership, (improper) preservation, (disputed) archive, and raising questions such as "who gets to tell our story?" and "where can my story be held?". Join CAT to explore further responses to the work, in a guided talkthrough of the exhibition.

https://www.traumascapes.org/last

with Isaac Ouro-Gnao, Gavin Edmonds, Julie-Yara Atz, Julian Triandafyllou, Sullivan Holderbach, Laura E. Fischer

Isaac Ouro-Gnao (he/they)

Isaac Ouro-Gnao is a Togolese-British multidisciplinary artist and freelance journalist. He graduated from Canterbury Christ Church University with a Multimedia Journalism BA in 2015, and from Queen Mary University of London in Creative Arts and Mental Health MSc in 2022. His work is rooted in magical realism and Africanfuturism with a focus on themes of childhood, trauma, memory, and mental health across the forms of dance, theatre, film, essays, and poetry.

Gavin Edmonds (all pronouns)

Dr Gavin Edmonds is an artist / artist-researcher whose work looks at how and why artists identify with other artists / artwork, and what processes are at work when this occurs. This developed from his own experience with an artwork, that lead to the subsequent recognition of PTSD, dating back to childhood. His work employs/builds upon the Freudian concept of (afterwardsness), which describes how an experience that is either incomprehensible or traumatic, is retained unconsciously then revivified at a later time in a different context.

Julie-Yara Atz (she/they)

Julie-Yara Atz is a Syrian-Swiss hybrid who studied filmmaking at the Geneva University of Arts and Design and acting at the Giles Foreman Centre for Acting in London. Her documentary “Leaving Syria: long live the youth” premiered at Telluride in 2017, and she was recently cast in BBC/ITV show “Shetland VI” as recurring character Salma Nassan. She is currently working on developing her first feature film “La Bâtardise” (Bastardy) – about a mixed Syrian-Swiss family in Switzerland – while finishing an MA in Cultural Studies at SOAS.

Julian Triandafyllou (he/they)

Julian trained within the arts, doing his BA at Central Saint Martins, London and his MA at the Edinburgh College of Art working under Emma Davie. His work - mainly moving image, but more recently involving text- has inexplicably explored the nature and experience of living with trauma, but themes also revolve more generally around time, memory, place and language. He has been working as an artist with Traumascapes since 20222 and is delighted to use his experience in facilitating arts and hospitality events as Operations Manager. He is also currently training to become an integrative counsellor with ELOP.

Sullivan Holderbach (he/they)

Sullivan is a trauma survivor, artist, and researcher focused on the development and facilitation of survivor-led, arts-facilitated, healing practices. His research aims to utilize creative practices as means to encourage and sustain health by renegotiating personal relationships and understandings of trauma. He completed his BA degree in Drama and Theatre Arts at the University of Birmingham and his MASc degree in Creative Health at University College London. His practice is informed by his multi-nationality as well as his experiences working as a stagehand, performer, costume/set designer and stage manager in both the Festival of European Anglophone Theatrical Societies and the Edinburgh Festival Fringe.

Laura E. Fischer (she/they)

Laura E. Fischer is the Founder & CEO of Traumascapes. Laura’s award-winning art practice focuses on the reclaiming and rewriting of the sociocultural narrative of trauma on survivors’ own terms and her research explores the embodied experience of trauma and creative body-based approaches to healing. Laura is also Visiting Senior Research Fellow at the Institute of Psychiatry, Psychology, and Neuroscience at King’s College London, Visiting Lecturer on the MASc Creative Health at UCL, Visiting Lecturer on the MSc Creative Arts and Mental Health at Queen Mary University of London, Visiting Lecturer on the MA Performance: Screen at Central Saint Martins, and she serves on the Data Monitoring and Ethics Committee for ATTUNE at the University of Oxford and the Editorial Advisory Board of The Lancet Psychiatry. Laura has published, presented, and exhibited internationally since 2005, and her artwork is held in the Central Saint Martins Museum Collection.

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Festival

The Traumascapes Arts Festival 2025 explores survivorhood through exhibition, film screenings, dance performances, talks, and workshops – all from the perspective of artists and researchers with lived experience of trauma.

See full programme here: https://traumascapes.org/arts-festival

About us

Traumascapes is a survivor-led organisation dedicated to changing the ecosystem of trauma and creating new horizons for survivors through art and science. Our work is bold, disruptive, and caring. It serves trauma survivors (individuals and groups who have been impacted by traumatic experiences such as, but not limited to, violence or abuse), persons and communities who support survivors, & professionals, organisations, and institutions who work on trauma and/or with survivors.

Accessibility

The venue is fully wheelchair accessible with step-free access throughout. An exhibition information pack is available with visual and conceptual descriptions of each artwork. A large-print pack is also available. All films screened as part of the festival include closed captions. Peer support workers and a quiet space with noise cancelling headphones and fidget toys are available on site (see the 'Caring for yourself and others' section below).

If you have any other access needs, please contact Julian and we will do our best to accommodate: julian@traumascapes.org.

Caring for yourself and your community

What to expect

The Traumascapes Arts Festival explores what it means to survive trauma, both individually and collectively. It includes the torment, the joy, and the messiness in between - all from the perspective of artists and researchers with lived experience of trauma. There are mentions/themes of colonialism, systemic violence, childhood and adulthood abuse (sexual, physical, emotional) and neglect, but there are no direct visual depictions of violence or abuse.​

Self and mutual care

It is important to hold space to explore trauma in order to raise awareness and to come together as a community to challenge the status quo and support collective healing. To create change, we must confront the reality of trauma - and this reality is a painful one.

But, as we do so, we must also counteract the normalisation of violence by fostering safety and protecting our wellbeing. As you explore the festival, we invite you to look after yourself and one another. Choose whether and when to engage, how much, and with whom. Step out when you need to and take care of yourself however feels right. Check-in with your peers too.

Support

• Peer support workers will be on site throughout the festival and you can chat to them any time. You can recognise them from their frog badges.

• A quiet space is located on the far end of the venue, on the right, where you can stay as long as you like, whenever you like.

• You can find noise-cancelling headphones, fidget toys, and art materials in the quiet space, which you can use at any time.

• Creative meditation and embodiment workshops are scheduled as part of the festival.

• An audio guide with grounding invitations is available for anyone to use as a way to explore the exhibition accompanied by some gentle grounding practices.

• For additional sources of support, please click here.

We may not be able to avoid all hurt and harm, but we can nurture safety and negotiate trauma with openness, mutual care, empathy, and grace. Thank you for being part of this.