»Let Them Haunt Us« analyzes contemporary aesthetics engaged in trauma and critically challenges its canonical status as »unrepresentable«. Focusing on case studies in the aesthetic practices of Janet Cardiff& George Bures Miller, Omer Fast, Forensic Architecture, and Paul McCarthy this book proposes to redefine trauma as a productive framework to exploring individual, collective, and cultural conflicts addressed in current artistic and curatorial practices. It considers the aesthetic realm as a potential forum that provides methods of understanding the humanitarian consequences of violence and warfare, and to reveal the effects of trauma on visual culture, collective memory, and politics.

Anna-Lena Werner, born in 1985, is a researcher and curator of contemporary aesthetic practices. She received her PhD from Freie Universität Berlin in 2019 and has worked as research associate for inter-institutional projects with Hamburger Bahnhof - Museum für Gegenwart - Berlin (2013-16), Staatliche Kunstsammlungen Dresden and Haus der Kulturen der Welt Berlin. Since 2011, she has been editing the online magazine »artfridge.de«.