This is Video of the Week from Wales Arts Review. We’ll be showcasing some of the best art in Wales with a new video shared every week. From music to drama and everything in between, videos will not be limited by medium. Today we’re doing something a little bit different and shining a spotlight on ‘Aberfan: Purgatorio’, a new lecture by Professor Brad Evans.
We appreciate variety here at Video of the Week and this week we’re taking a step into a much longer video than normal. This week marked the release of ‘Aberfan: Purgatorio’, a recording of a new lecture delivered by Professor Brad Evans. Recorded as a live-stream, as part of a summer series by the Apocalyptic and Post-Apocalyptic Studies, the lecture explores the “in between time” and the idea of an inescapable purgatory, in relation to the Aberfan tragedy.
Reflecting on the history of the valleys in the surrounding area, Evans discusses the nature of identity, industry and a sense of revolution within south Wales. Questions of trauma and nostalgia feature in Evans’ exploration of how the “lasting injustice” of Aberfan has led to a lasting sense of communal loss.
Professor Brad Evans is a political philosopher, critical theorist and writer. Author of eighteen books and edited volumes, with dedicated series in The New York Times, in addition to his work as a lead editor with The Los Angeles Review of Books. You can read his interview with Caragh Medlicott, on the rise of Twitter, big tech and the role of art in imagining new futures, here.
