Roundtable: Art, Psychoanalysis, Gender and Sexuality

A Roundtable discussion at the Grange, Norfolk

June 2025

Contributors: Symo Reyn, Alexandre Paulikevitch, Dr Anouchka Grose, Dr Amin Hashemi, John Plowman, Dr Polly Withers. Chaired by Dr Nicola Streeton

The Foundation for Art & Psychoanalysis has worked with Grange Projects, Norfolk to present a Roundtable on Art, Psychoanalysis, Gender and Sexuality.

This round table has been organised to coincide with a residency by sound artist and composer Symo Reyn, during which he has worked on to his upcoming album, *Et si on commençait à la toute fin?* (*What if we started at the very end?*). The album explores our relationship with imbalance and disproportion, reflecting social, intimate, and collective tensions. It aims to challenge listening norms, revealing alterities and marginalized existences through an eccentric sonic experience. Symo will discuss his work and introduce his insturment the electroacoustic qanun, as well as giving a short performance.

Dancer Alexandre Paulikevitch is participating in the discussion online, talking about his artistic journey, focusing on his artistic expression within a gendered society and the impact of power structures on subjectivity. His research, art practice and methodology revolve around developing and reviving "Baladi Dance" commonly known in the west as "belly dancing or raqs sharqi" into a contemporary and politically charged art form.

Dr Anouchka Grose, Dr Amin Hashemi, and Dr Polly Withers will each engage in a conversational Q&A with the artists, addressing their work and themes from the angle of their individual research.

The event is chaired by Nicola Streeten who co-runs The Grange Projects Residency programme in Norfolk with artist spouse John Plowman.

About the Contributors 

Symo Reyn

Symo Reyn is a Franco-Jordanian composer, sound artist, and electroacoustic qanun player. He lives and works in Paris since 2007. He began playing the qanun at the age of five and, as a teenager, took part in international music meetings in the Middle East. Inspired by Western musicians, he developed new techniques to reinvent the instrument early on. After moving to France, he turned toward cinema and studied composition with Bernard Cavanna, then with Patrice Mestral at the École Normale de Musique de Paris, earning a degree in film scoring. Driven by a desire for universality, he explores new dimensions of the qanun. Drawing from the techniques of other instruments, he transforms the playing and sound of this centuries-old zither, long associated with traditional music. This approach is central to his solo album A Time Between Birth and Chaos, where the instrument is reimagined and played in an electroacoustic way, using a custom-designed sensor he developed to extend the qanun’s sonic possibilities.

His music, shaped by multiple identities, plays with contrast and draws from diverse realms such as science fiction, jazz, psychedelia, minimal, and contemporary music.

Alexandre Paulikevitch

Alexandre Paulikevitch ​was born in 1982 in Beirut, Lebanon. In 2000, he moved to Paris to pursue his interest in dance and graduated from the University of Paris VIII with a degree in Theater and Dance. He trained with various women dance icons in the Arab world.
His research, art practice and methodology revolve around developing and reviving "Baladi Dance" commonly known in the west as "belly dancing or raqs sharqi" into a contemporary and politically charged art form.
He performs in spaces ranging from underground parties to theatre festivals and museums.

Dr Amin Hashemi

Dr Amin Hashemi is an interdisciplinary researcher whose work spans ethnomusicology, psychoanalysis, discourse theory, and urban cultural studies. He is currently a Leverhulme Early Career Fellow in the Department of Music at the University of Aberdeen, where his research explores the psychoanalytic dimensions of subjectivity and creativity among Iranian migrant musicians in the UK. Amin completed his PhD in Media Studies (Popular Music) at SOAS, University of London. His doctoral thesis examined political antagonism in post-revolutionary Iranian popular music, focusing on the cultural politics and everyday musical practices between 2013 and 2018. His research is grounded in discourse theory and Lacanian psychoanalysis, offering a unique lens on how music mediates identity, conflict, and belonging. Prior to his current fellowship, Amin led a research project on rock music practices among Iranian youth, supported by a competitive grant. This work investigated how musical expression within university settings in Iran reflects broader socio-political tensions and aspirations. Amin’s broader academic interests include the transformation of cultural paradigms, the role of urban space in shaping musical and artistic practices, and the unconscious dimensions of cultural production.

Dr Anoushka Grose

Dr Anouchka Grose is a London-based psychoanalyst, writer, lecturer and climate campaigner. Her nine published books include: The Teenage Vegetarian’s Survival Guide (Random House 1991), which won a Friends of the Earth award, No More Silly Love Songs: a realist’s guide to romance (Portobello, 2010), A Guide to Eco-Anxiety: how to protect the planet and your mental health (Watkins, 2020), Uneasy Listening: notes on Hearing and Being Heard (Mack, 2022) and Fashion: a Manifesto (Notting Hill Editions, 2023). She also writes about art and fashion, and has contributed to The Guardian, Granta, Harpers Bazaar, and Radio 4, as well as appearing in Josh Appignanesi’s documentary, My Extinction (2023). Anouchka Grose is a London-based psychoanalyst, writer, lecturer and climate campaigner. Her nine published books include: The Teenage Vegetarian’s Survival Guide (Random House 1991), which won a Friends of the Earth award, No More Silly Love Songs: a realist’s guide to romance (Portobello, 2010), A Guide to Eco-Anxiety: how to protect the planet and your mental health (Watkins, 2020), Uneasy Listening: notes on Hearing and Being Heard (Mack, 2022) and Fashion: a Manifesto (Notting Hill Editions, 2023). She also writes about art and fashion, and has contributed to The Guardian, Granta, Harpers Bazaar, and Radio 4, as well as appearing in Josh Appignanesi’s documentary, My Extinction (2023).

John Plowman

John Plowman is an artist who has exhibited in and curated solo and group exhibitions in the UK and abroad. Plowman established Beacon Art Project, which between 2004 and 2016 worked regionally, nationally, and internationally commissioning artworks from over seventy artists and providing opportunities for audiences to experience contemporary visual art in non-gallery spaces, usually heritage sites. Since 2017, he leads Beacon Bureau, employing his skills, knowledge, and experience to work with others whose interests are congruent with his own. Plowman regularly collaborates with individuals and organisations to advise, mentor, and curate exhibitions and events.

Dr Polly Withers

Dr Polly Withers is a Leverhulme Early Career Fellow at the LSE Middle East Centre, where she leads the project ‘Neoliberal Visions: Gendering Consumer Advertising and its Resistances in the Levant’, which considers how gendered images in advertising practices mediate shifts in gender and sexuality in post-Oslo Palestine and current-day Jordan. Prior to beginning this project, Polly’s work focused on the gender and sexuality politics of popular music in current-day Palestine and its diaspora. Her work has appeared in Feminist Media Studies, the British Journal of Middle East Studies, and related gender and cultural studies outlets.

Dr Nicola Streeten

Dr Nicola Streeten UK-based multi-award-winning graphic novelist and comics scholar. Her graphic memoir Billy, Me & You (Myriad Editions, 2011) was followed by The Inking Woman (Myriad Editions, 2018) a 250-year illustrated history of British women’s cartoonists. This was complemented by theoretical publication UK Feminist Cartoons and Comics: A Critical Survey (Palgrave Macmillan, 2020). She is currently working on Yield, her second graphic novel, a fictionalised story set at the radical American alternative community Black Mountain College (1933-1957), based on diaries and letters of her great uncle, John Evarts, one of the founding faculty members (1933-1957). Nicola is founding director of LDComics – a women creator-led forum welcoming all, championing graphic novel works, particularly by women. In 2022-2023 She received a British Council International Collaboration award to deliver REVEAL! Women’s Comics East Africa-UK with a Kenyan partner, storying gender and climate change. Nicola co-runs The Grange Projects Residency programme in Norfolk with artist spouse John Plowman.