I was selected to participate in a project run by Dr Lee Campbell through the UAL postgraduate network. UAL staff members, guest speakers and postgraduate students were asked to consider empathy and its applications to their work and the wider art world. Each of those selected were asked to present to the wider group.

​

​In her book, The Perfect Spectator,  Janneke Wesseling states that "looking at art is something active, with the spectator expecting or wanting something from the work. Conversely, the art work also makes an appeal to the spectator, it is not a passive interlocuter, it has something to say. In contemplation, there is an encounter between two players, the spectator’s awareness and the art work’s “awareness”.

                             

I am interested in how that interaction is effected if empathy is employed in the relationship. We create different relationships with people depending on our shared experiences – some people we click with and others we don’t. Perhaps the same is true with our relationships with artworks. If we employ empathy in our interactions with others we are open to/for connection. If the same is true for our interaction with art objects, I imagine that it may provide for a much gentler and personable approach to viewing art – where it is possible not to have to like or understand all but to allow some works to connect and others to not.

​​