In this episode…
…a conversation with Jochen, about how words can echo in a body for a long time.
I think about what trauma would look like if we could observe it outside of a human body. What shape would it have? What would the texture feel like if I would run my index finger over the edges? How much would each particular traumatic experience weigh? Would it be mushy or soft? Would lifting it sound like the crackling of cartilage, would it be massively heavy?
In wanting to design gatherings where these and other questions could be investigated, I reached out to my sibling Jochen. As two people that grew up in the same family setting, I wanted to know more about how some of our childhood experiences have impacted him. Specifically, I was interested in finding out how he would approach the expression of internalized trauma, as he is a visual artist that works with a myriad of different techniques and materials.
Here and here you can learn more about the visual art Jochen created, as part of our collaborative exploration of trauma. In our recorded horizontal conversation he shares about this artistic process, with regard to the severe way in which his intelligence was underestimated as a child. He articulates where in his body he can still sense the impact of the way he was spoken to, by adults responsible for his education. The blast of being told you are less than, can vibrate long after you have left that situation. It is a coming together of innocence, authority, timing and a unsuspecting trust in the adult that is tattooing these words and their meaning into your brain. What follows is a lifetime of unlearning, that which was over in a matter of seconds.
On 28 January 2027 this conversation will be launched as episode 7.
Jochen Lange
Jochen is an autonomous artist that has a background in making puppets, props and costumes. He comes from a family of artists, is father to two daughters, a son and a brother.
As a child, he was fascinated by the movements of people and animals. Always drawing and building, he has never stopped doing so. He does not like to overthink, but rather follows his intuition — leaving room for chance and for what the material has to offer.
Things he enjoys doing are: singing, reading, drawing, walking in nature, and sitting around a campfire with family and friends. He dreams of an inclusive world, in which everyone is free to express themselves in their own authentic way. A world full of art, music, dance, and theatre.
id: a picture of jochen and his cat bowie on their balcony full of plants. jochen is a white man brown short hair , beard and moustache, brown eyes. he is wearing a black long sleeved shirt, tan bermuda pants, white sport socks and his signature flat cap, this time a yellow one. jochen is sitting on a bench ,petting the cat, that has brown, white, orange spots, some black stripes. plants all around the balcony.Building a powerful archive of embodied knowledge, one conversation at a time.