Patricia Klich (completion date: September 2019) is a doctoral researcher at University College Cork examining the complex of issues surrounding post-traumatic theatre. Her current research is supported by a postgraduate scholarship from the Irish Research Council , and approaches the subject through an interdisciplinary study of psychology, sociology, history, philosophy, language, and visual, film, and theatre studies. She is a mixed media artist, professional filmmaker and videographer, photographer, costumer, and graphic designer, and holds a first class honours degree in Photography and Visual Arts from the Dublin Institute of Technology.
In the course of her artistic and academic practices, Patricia Klich has experimented with combinations of forms to produce immersive performance works and installations that defy simple categories and produce lingering and impactful emotional experiences. Through her works, she investigates how the medium of theatre addresses mechanisms of violence and power, and the role of sacrifice within them; the ambivalence of love and hate; the trauma of separation and loneliness in the face of death; the dark and cruel side of human nature, displaced beyond humanity; injustice and guilt, which cannot be clearly defined; and how love sometimes contains unspeakable loss inscribed within it.
Continually examining the possibilities of transmedial post-traumatic theatre as they have evolved after WWII, Patricia Klich seeks to provide new perspectives in the area of performative and visual arts, and their interaction with multimedia technologies. Her work focuses on the interaction between live performance and media elements and analyse the ability of performative arts to create readable and comprehensible imagery when the mechanisms of representation fail, as they often do when dealing with traumatic subject matter.
Research supervisors: Dr. Bernadette Cronin, Dr. Marie Kelly.
