Author: Tessa Roberts-Smorenburg

Tessa Roberts-Smorenburg

Tessa Roberts-Smorenburg (1987) graduated as a master in Ethics of Care and Policy at the University of Humanistic Studies in Utrecht (NL) in 2015. She currently holds the double position of ethical consultant, and policy advisor in the Centre on the Quality of Life and Survivorship, at the Antoni van Leeuwenhoek hospital in Amsterdam (NL). This centre accommodates the physical/psychosocial, supportive and survivorship care for cancer patients. As a sociotherapist she worked in direct contact with patients in psychiatric clinics. Her previous experience at TAAK brought her in contact with visual artists and care institutions to whom she provided an ethics of care perspective during research and project development for the programme “Art & Care”.

Girl, The everyday struggle of a transgender

The Belgian film Girl (Lukas Dhont, 2018) shares the intimate life of a fifteen year old girl named Lara. She dances at a renowned ballet academy in Belgium, and she hopes to fulfil her dream of becoming a professional ballerina. The film opens with her admission interview, wherein it is explained that she will be granted a trial period – because Lara isn’t just any girl, she is a transgender girl, born male.

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REALITY, artistic research on ‘losing grip on reality’

In 2016, the Dutch artist Yasmijn Karhof spent three months as artist-in-residence in the psychiatric ward at Kings County Hospital in Brooklyn NYC (USA). Integral to her artistic practice is the expression of the subjective experience of reality in a visual context.

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