In connection with Joachim Koester’s exhibition “Bringing Something Back”, we are pleased to present Jelena Martinovic with the lecture “Out of the Body into the Mind: Near-Death Experiences, Mountaineering and Psy Sciences in the 19th and 20th Century.” After the lecture, Joachim Koester will talk with Martinovic about the theme of the lecture and the exhibition.
Martinovic will examine pictorial and textual representations of accidents and subjective experiences in the Alps from the 19th and 20th centuries. Her material will be presented to demonstrate how alpine climbing literature merged with a psychological and neurological approach to deliver distinctive mid-20th century concepts, such as out-of-body experiences and near-death experiences.
Martinovic’s themes correspond with some of Joachim Koester’s artistic explorations, like the spiritual and consciousness-expanding, as well as the body’s physical ability to store memories through life.
Jelena Martinovic was born in Switzerland in 1981 and works currently as a researcher at University College London, Institute of Advanced Studies/Health Humanities Center. She has previously worked at Harvard University, Department of History of Science, and participated in a research project at HEAD-Geneva, about mind control in art and design. Her book, Mort imminente (Near-Death Experience: How Psychiatry Turned a Folk Phenomenon into Therapeutic Insight) was published in June 2017.