Create with Compassion: Tragedy, Creation, and Personal Wellbeing
Researching the depictions of tragedy through musical installation, it becomes clear that the levels of vicarious trauma that can be transferred onto the creator. In this process of researching the impact on vicarious trauma on creators, a discussion emerged in my practice into the fine balance between the creator and the audience. This emerged in the response to my visit to the Memorial and Museum Auschwitz-Birkenau (Wąsowicz, 1946). Having felt my own unexpected response to this I found that I needed to explore the essence of what was causing the trauma. This is an area that is emerging in research through the practices of music and art therapies. However, acknowledging my own limitations in this field, the focus of my research has remained to provide a framework to create between.
Awareness of vicarious trauma in the fields of film and research (Kaplan, 2005). Furthermore, and in a manner that causes concern, studies linking exposure to trauma with addiction to traumatic content continue to emerge. These studies provided a basis from which I set out to challenge the levels of traumatic exposure in relation to the individual practice when creating tagged works. My intention was to strike a balance between exposure, reward, and the provisions for a wider network of individuals around the creator. Furthermore, and fundamental to this project, the focus was on ensuring that the creator maintained their own autonomy in the process, providing guidance to encourage best practice and not dictate action, adhering to the notions of freedom to create outlined by Camus (2018) and Barthes (1977).
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