Abstract
This dissertation explores how palimpsest and the act of palimpsesting in art can be utilised to engage with memories of trauma and potentially resolve such memories through a process of self-dialogical engagement and artistic output. I attempt to create a model for finding a way forward through the trauma that, if not resolved, could hamper personal and artistic development. My phenomenological experience of childhood trauma is used to illustrate how such a process of engagement with memory can be set about. Theoretically this study explores the palimpsest as a historical palaeographic object and a metaphorical construct and argues that the dialogical self is also a layered palimpsest, when viewed through the lens of Dialogical Self Theory (DST). My study explores notions of the differing position of the self in inner dialogues by engaging with the literary concepts of Martin Buber and the concepts of heteroglossia, polyphony and chronotope as outlined by Russian theorist and philosopher Mikhail Bakhtin. My enquiry includes a comparative study of Willem Boshoff, Naomi Sultanik and my own work to illustrate how instances of self dialogism and palimpsest can engage memories of trauma and lead to a richer analysis of these artists’ works and, by comparison, also my own practice. In conclusion I explicate my body of work in relation to the knowledge I have gained through my research and the resolution of traumatic memories.