Inner Recreation

This article is a conversation between Judy Goldhill and Fay Ballard, two second-generation artists, respectively Jewish and non-Jewish. Goldhill's parents escaped from Nazi Germany, whilst Ballard's father, the novelist J.G. Ballard, was interned in a Japanese prison camp. Goldhill works on photography, film and artists’ books and Ballard draws. They have collaborated extensively, following a conversation in 2016 about a shared experience of generational trauma and early parental loss. Both artists have been using recovered objects, photographs and letters in their artwork and this collaboration has led to several joint exhibitions including Breathe (Freud Museum, 2018), Travelling Companions (Alison Richard Building (ARB), University of Cambridge, 2020–21) and Mending the Psyche (Peltz Gallery, Birkbeck, University of London, 2022).