Screening (Part one of two events)
Date & Time: Friday 24 January 2025, 2.00-6.00 pm (GMT)
Location: tbc
Conquistador Freud
~ Imaginaries, Fables, Fantasies
A video Essay by Richard Werbner
Screening of six episode on Freud’s Visual Imagination
Conquistador Freud, Imaginaries, Fables, Fantasies, is a new work taking the form of an experimental video essay by Richard Werbner, inspired by Freud’s own self-description to his close friend Wilhelm Fliess. This work departs from the familiar depictions of Freud as the psychoanalyst and scientist, inviting audiences to discover Freud as an artist, collector, and dreamer – a man captivated by the visual and symbolic power of objects and spaces. Freud’s cryptic inscriptions with images in his rooms at home are shown to be dramatic, creative of stage-crafted spaces where he could feel he belonged while somehow being a wayfarer, who could always be imaginatively transported in freizuegig, free passage beyond frontiers.
The essay’s first and last episodes are now available on the RAI’s YouTube website, through these links:
Conquistador Freud – Episode 1 YouTube
Conquistador Freud – Episode 6 – YouTube
In Werbner’s exploration, we encounter Freud not as the target of the “Freud Wars” or a figure in the Freudian industry but as a designer of intimate spaces and a collector with a curatorial sensibility. Freud’s fascination with imagery extended to his own life, where he saw himself not merely in words but in pictographic elements and symbolic spaces within his Viennese home. This included the autobiography inscribed on his walls, a Garden of Eden crafted for his patients, a micro-theatre of figurines on his study desk alongside a shielding table, in a contemplative niche to separate him from visitors, with an archaic imaginary of very eminent healers and scribes, and a masculine retreat on his veranda, each a multi-layered expression of his inner life.
Part two of the Conquistador Freud events:
On February 14th, 6.00 to 9.00 pm, a workshop on Conquistador Freud will be held at UCL Archaeology Lecture Theatre, Gordon Square (31-34), London WC1H 0PY. There will be two panels.
Find the info for the workshop here.
Screening venue:
Gavin de Beer Lecture Theatre G04
Medical Sciences and Anatomy Building
Gower Street
London, WC1E 6BT
