Workshop (Part two of two events)
Date & Time: Friday 14 February 2025, 6.00 – 9.00pm (GMT)
Location: Archaeology Lecture Theatre G6, UCL (full address below)
Free in Person event. No ticket needed.
Conquistador Freud
~ Imaginaries, Fables, Fantasies
A video Essay by Richard Werbner
Workshop, consisting of two panels
PROGRAM
6:00 Welcome and introduction: Richard Werbner, Social Anthropologist
First Panel – Moderator: Richard Fardon, Social Anthropologist
6:10 – 6:30 Screening, Episode 3, Framing of Movement, Portal, Doors
6:30 – 6:45 Episode 2, Consulting Room: Anastasios Gaitanidis, Psychoanalyst
6:45 – 7:15 Open Discussion
7:15 – 7:30 Episode 4, Study : Jolynna Sinanan, Visual Anthropologist
7:30 – 7:45 Open Discussion
Second Panel- Moderator: Rafael Schacter, Social Anthropologist
7:45 – 8:00 Episode 5 Veranda: Frank Triggs, Sculptor
8:00 – 8:15 Open Discussion
8:15 – 8:30 Episode 6 Vienna to London: Mattia Fumanti, Social Anthropologist
8:30 – 9:00 Open Discussion
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.
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.
Venue:
Archaeology Lecture Theatre G6
University College London
Gordon Square 31-34
London WC1H 0PY
