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“And Honey, I am the World’s Forgotten Boy.” On the Transference of the Unsaid as Becoming

by | Vol 31 (2) 2013

In this in-depth interview the Belgian-Syrian artist Mekhitar Garabedian (°1977, Aleppo) and psychoanalyst Filip Geerardyn explore the process of the emergence of subjectivity at stake in the creative oeuvre of the artist. The leitmotiv of this exploration is the analogy between the creative process on the one hand, and what is implied with Nietzsche’s imperative “Become what thou art!” on the other. This becoming (understood as the transference of the un-spoken) of the subject as well as of the artist, appears to realise itself through the Other, i.e., through the mother tongue (Armenian), through the others, through citations, through stories and histories, through collections and through the proper name Mekhitar.

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