Experimenting with Exhaustion A Roundtable Conversation

The Fuck Healing (?) collective works at the intersection of theoretical investigation and creative practice around the themes of trauma, wounding and breaks. Founded in 2021, the collective critically interrogates ideas of ‘healing’ as proximate to hegemonic regimes of conformity and normative perceptions of health. From this position the collective questions the notion of healing as the transition from a state of ‘unwellness’ to ‘well’ and ‘healthy’, and propositionally work with methods to institute ongoing practices of care beyond these reductive categories. Through collaborative organization, the Fuck Healing (?) collective questions the merits of our wounds, the divergent momentum they present, and recognise the future modes of ‘becomings’ that ‘breaking’ may allow us. By bringing together diverse institutions, artists and thinkers, the collective strengthens the network between academic and artistic communities of The Netherlands, whilst contributing to urgent contemporary discussions on alternative therapies and the reintegrative power of creative making in response to woundings and traumas. The members of the collective are teachers, researchers, and creative practitioners, bringing together their artistic and academic work in their teaching at different universities in The Netherlands. This roundtable conversation took place following the collective's second event, ‘Fuck Healing (?): The Insomniac Dreamers’.