Dr Naomi Pearce
Wednesday 02nd September 2026
About:
Naomi Pearce is a writer living in Ceredigion. Her debut novel, Innominate (MOIST Books, 2023), was described by Iain Sinclair as “a classic of local archaeology.” Drawing on a background in textiles, her work weaves together feminist and queer histories, place, ecology, and art. She has been published in British Art Studies, LA Review of Books, TON Magazine, and The White Review and performed live at Experimentica (Chapter, 2024) and Sownd [ar safle] Cors Caron (Cymru yn Fenis / Wales in Venice, 61st Venice Biennale, 2026), amongst others. Naomi recently participated in the Hay Festival Writers at Work programme and teaches fine art and art history at Aberystwyth University.
Session details:
This workshop drew on Saidiya Hartman’s method of ‘critical fabulation’ and Annette Kuhn’s concept of ‘memory work’, inviting participants to animate photographs through creative writing. Together, we explored how latent meanings—associated, imagined, and felt—might be unlocked from beneath the image surface, and considered the narratives unfolding just beyond the frame.
Through exercises in misreading, over-identification, and self-implication, participants experimented with ways of feeling for the edges of the photograph as document, evidence, and proof. The workshop offered a space to question what photographs can tell us, what they leave unsaid, and what might emerge when we allow ourselves to imagine beyond the visible image.
Images by © Tara Cochran
We would like to thank the Paul Mellon Centre, whose generous funding has enabled us to continue these sessions.
