Hannah Höch's radical imagination
Kay Tabernacle
My research investigates concepts of imagination in Hannah Höch's independent and collaborative work. I ask where Höch locates her understanding of imagination within different conceptual frameworks, drawing on concepts of imagination from Bergson, Freud, Breton, Benjamin and Bachelard. The centrality of image to imagination is key to this understanding of how imagination relates to memory, reality and fantasy. Through the visual representability of ideas, thoughts and feelings, I propose the operation of a radical imagination, both as a means toward Höch’s aim of transforming people’s interactions with the world through questioning assumptions about reality, and as an agent of change in the present. Related studio practice in painting, drawing and animation informs my thesis and provides a space to test different propositions of imagination. This research project is supervised by Dr Sharon Morris (Slade), Dr Stephanie Bird (UCL Department of German) and Jo Volley (Slade).
