Tamar Ettun: How to Trap a Demon
Lili and Lilu (2023), sculpture, size variable, installation view at the Shelburne Museum. image / provided
Teiger Mentor in the Arts Lecture Series
Abstract
Tamar Ettun will discuss her textile installations, sculptures, drawings, videos, and performances that reflect on somatic empathy in relation to trauma-healing and ritual. The work deals with the process of responding to others through sensory-based, embodied experiences. The lecture will expand on Ettun's long-term adaptation of ancient healing rituals involving the demon Lilit. These rituals address contemporary gender-based oppression with a focus on pregnancy, birth, abortion, infertility, and motherhood.
The lecture will conclude with a hands-on demon-trapping movement exercise, open to demons and humans alike. No prior experience necessary!
Biography
Tamar Ettun (she/they) creates immersive textile installations, sculptures, drawings, videos, and performances that reflect on somatic empathy — the process of responding to others through sensory-based, embodied experiences — in relation to trauma-healing and ritual. She has exhibited and performed at The Ford Foundation, The Walker Art Center, Pioneer Works, The Chinati Foundation, The Shelburne Museum, Marjorie Barrick Museum of Art, The Watermill Center, Art Omi Sculpture Garden, PERFORMA, Socrates Sculpture Park, The Jewish Museum, and Sculpture Center.
Ettun has received many awards and fellowships, including support from The Pollock Krasner Foundation, Interlude Artist Residency, Fountainhead, Moca Tucson, Stoneleaf Retreat, MacDowell Fellowship, Franklin Furnace, Iaspis, Art Production Fund, Lower Manhattan Cultural Council, Triangle Arts Association, Abrons Art Center, and RECESS. Amongst other long-term projects, Ettun's multidisciplinary work Lilit the Empathic Demon has, since 2020, explored the insidious side of empathy, empathy fatigue, trauma-healing modalities, and astrology as storytelling through text messages to a growing community.
Ettun's work was included in the new sculpture anthology Great Women Sculptors published by Phaidon Press (2024). She holds an M.F.A. in Sculpture from Yale University.
Tamar Ettun is the Spring 2025 Teiger Mentor in the Arts.
