Imogen Stidworthy

About

Imogen Stidworthy uses a series of cognitive interviews with recent war veterens to develop a new audio work, exploring how experience is recalled and communicated. The cognitive interview is used in many fields where sensitivity is important, for example when police speak to a witness of a crime. The interview follows a precise but open structure to access different forms of memory, such as episodic, semantic and sensory, and the focus on colour, light and smell can allow the interviewee to reconstruct an event in detail. The choice of veterans as her subject is symbolic. Loughborough University has a history of military connections, from the munitions training centre that was set up here during World War One to the recent establishment of the Defence Technology Centre (a collaboration between the university and the MOD). This work is presented in the Waiting Room of Loughborough Railway Station, which overlooks another old munitions factory,the Brush Factory.