Uma Breakdown | “Esprit-de-corps / CORPSE EXPLOSION: The cadaver that gives rise to something else.”
The lecture is guided by Hélène Cixous and the writer’s various proposals for art production to be seen through death and dying. The first part tracks around my long-term research interests and practise, exploring what I short-hand as“The Reparative Gothic”, horror that re-prioritises love, affect, and solidarity. The second part moves onto my current and in-progress work around decomposition andcybernetics. Things to potentially expect include: Warhammer 40,000, Bryan Fuller’s Hannibal, Haruspicy, the video game Dead Space, pharmaceutically induced impairment, the work of Hideaki Anno, “Michelle Forbes Studies”, and whale falls.

I’m Uma, an artist and award winning game designer interested in animals, horror, queer feminist literature, and ecology. Everything I make is about some combination of love, grief, hallucination, and an excess of joy. In 2020 I finished a PhD about The Evil Dead, care, écriture feminine, and disaster. With Sammy Paloma I make video games about the divine and occult providence of transfemme existence. I’m currently an “Unseen Futures” Fellow with A.N.D, and have just opened my first solo exhibition “Earth A.D.” co-commissioned by and touring across Wysing Arts Centre (Cambridge, 2022), FACT (Liverpool, 2023), and Quad (Derby, 2024).
Date: 26 January 2023, 17:00 (Thursday, 2nd week, Hilary 2023)
Venue: 128 Bullingdon Road, 128 Bullingdon Road OX4 1QP
Venue Details: Project Space
Speaker: Uma Breakdown
Organising department: Ruskin School of Art
Organiser contact email address: info@rsa.ox.ac.uk
Part of: Talks in Contemporary Art
Booking required?: Required
Booking url: https://bit.ly/Ruskin_ContArtTalks
Cost: Free
Audience: Public
Editor: Johanna Gullberg