Sharon Young is an artist based in London. Born in Northern Ireland she studied at The Royal College of Art where her doctoral research considered the role of the ‘hysteric’ as an activist for deconstructing dominant structures. Her practice ranges across photography, writing, film, performance and sound with a current interest in collaborative live practice. She is currently a lecturer at Camberwell College of Arts, London where she supervises PhD candidates in fine art who define themselves as artists, feminists and queer refusers of dominant orders.
She is Director of The Hysterical Chorus, Live! a performance collective who identify with the unfair dismissal of certain voices. She is an Associate Editor for the Journal for Art Writing with a particular interest in ficto-criticsm, critical fabulations, subjectivities and non-normative, fragmented and poetic academic submissions. She takes commissions for writing that aligns with these themes.
She also teaches at Boston University, Study Abroad London and The Royal College of Art, London.
“Hysteria is a phenomenon rooted in repression. A physical embodied symptom that has no rhyme nor reason, medically speaking. Through analysis (sometimes) the reason for the symptom is revealed. And (sometimes) as a result the strange symptoms are alleviated. Hysteria is often associated with women, the fin de siècle and France where symptoms included fainting spells, numbness of limbs or limpness and malaise. In my artwork I’m interested in the symptoms that relate to language such as fragmented, stuttering and broken speech; an inability to recall words and articulate things so-called sensibly. I use these fragments to tell the hysterics’ story as an act of defiance against societal norms.”
Her work has been presented and exhibited worldwide including The Freud Museum; The London Archives; Swedenborg House; Stroud Film Festival; Tate Exchange – Tate Liverpool // Venice; Encontros das Imagem, Braga; Goa Photo Festival; Peckham 24, London; The Centre of Photography, Clement-Ferrond, ASC and P3 Ambika Gallery, London. Her work is held in public collections such as the V&A Library, The Yale Centre for British Art and PhotoIreland Foundation.
Sharon holds a PhD from the Royal College of Art entitled:
Once More with Feeling; A Reinvention of Hysteria using photography, performance and autofiction.
by Asa Johanesson