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In the research project Autobiography as Research, Valentina Stepanova further challenges her transdisciplinary documentary practice. More specifically, she aims to place a scanner over a reservoir of memories, stories, objects, photographs, and audiovisual material - not only as personal archaeology but also as a mirror for broader societal shifts. How does an individual memory echo within the larger movements of history and politics? What forms can autobiographical storytelling take today, in a world where collective memory and disinformation increasingly collide? How does a personal story relate to the normalization of violence, the circulation of ideologies, and the mechanisms of forgetting? By zooming in and out - between the particular and the systemic - this research aims to penetrate the fault lines of our time.

As part of her research project Autobiography as Research, Valentina Stepanova explores how personal memories and archives can function as tools for artistic research. Within this process, she also asks how themes such as violence, horror and their normalisation can be discussed. Together with theatre maker Peter Aers, she is organising a collective reading and discussion session in this context. It is an invitation to read, listen and exchange thoughts together on the theme of murder, horror and violence. The gathering — a shared moment of exploration, as it were — will last approximately two hours. The reading will be in English.