“No Body is Closed”: Cornelia Thomsen and Siri Hustvedt in Conversation

1014 space for ideas, in collaboration with the German Consulate General New York and Deutsches Haus at NYU, presents “No Body Is Closed: Discussing the Collective Self” a conversation between visual artist Cornelia Thomsen and renowned novelist and essayist Siri Hustvedt, which will be moderated by Eric Banks, the Director of New York Institute for the Humanities. In this exchange, the two New York-based creatives, painter and author, will reflect on the concept of the collective self―the many ways in which human identities are created, disassembled, and reconfigured in the context of social, political, historical, cultural, and familial systems. They will discuss how the complex process by which countless influences bear upon the formation and evolution of the self has impacted their personal histories and memories. How, for instance, did their selves evolve at the interstices of different languages, cultures, and political systems? What influence has this multiplicity of belonging had on their later lives? How do memories, and present circumstances, continually reshape one’s sense of being and self — and, in that context, how has the experience of motherhood reshaped their identities? How are their multifaceted and multitudinous identities reflected, discussed, and negotiated in their literature and art.