Hanna Segal argued that the unconscious driver behind artistic creation is the need to re-create a once loved and once whole, but now lost and ruined object. Creative practice, then, may be driven by an unconscious desire to recreate and reconstitute a ruined internal world and self. How might the act of art making heal a damaged subject? What drives creative impulses? And how can interrogating creative practice be helpful in the wider context of Arts and Humanities?

In tandem with the Wellcome Trust-funded exhibition Mending the Psyche, running at the Peltz gallery between May and July 2022, this special issue of Dandelion seeks submissions on the theme of creativity as reparation. Furthering the scope of the exhibition and programme of events which look specifically at creative practice as a response to grief and mourning, the issue opens the field to other forms of reparation, creative healing and art practice/process as a form of anti-capitalist resistance to productivity culture. 

We welcome papers that address a wide scope of themes within multiple disciplines including but not limited to; the intersection of art and science, literature, psychoanalysis, gender and sexuality, race and decoloniality, philosophy, film, photography, and all forms of creative practice.

This special issue provides an opportunity for an in-depth, interdisciplinary exploration of creativity and artistic practice as a mode of reparation, healing or expression of the subject in process.

Possible topics within this theme may be, but not limited to:

• The function and process of creative practice or art making as a mode of ‘becoming’ or expression of the human subject in process
• ‘Overcoming’ difficult experiences or trauma, reclaiming, healing and self-development through creative practice
• The interrogation of social and cultural expectations of time delimited definitions of grief and mourning
• Psychoanalytic theory on creative practice
• Creative expressions of family, family histories, generational trauma
• Memory, memoir, life-writing, auto-fiction, auto-theory
• Creative forms of decolonial practice
• The interrogation of capitalist, patriarchal, neo-liberal, colonial and heteronormative frameworks of creative production, self-development and personal growth.
• Art making and creative practice as resistance, rebellion, activism
• Creative and/or theoretical responses to the exhibition and programme of events

Submission guidelines

We welcome short articles up to 2000 words, critical reviews of books, films, performances and exhibitions, particularly creative and critical reflections on the Mending the Psyche exhibition and/or programme of events. We also encourage submissions of artwork including visual art; creative writing; podcasts and video footage (up to 10 minutes). We would be happy to discuss ideas for submissions with interested authors prior to the deadline. Please contact Carly Robinson on crobin16@student.bbk.ac.uk

Please also include a 50-word author biography and a 200-300-word abstract alongside your submission. All referencing and style is required in full MHRA format as a condition of publication and submitted articles should be academically rigorous and ready for immediate publication. Submissions can be made at  www.dandelionjournal.org/  or emailed to crobin16@student.bbk.ac.uk by 29^th July 2022.