• Skip to content
  • Skip to footer
  • Accessibility options
University of Brighton
  • About us
  • Business and
    employers
  • Alumni and
    supporters
  • For
    students
  • For
    staff
  • Accessibility
    options
Open menu
Home
Home
  • Close
  • Study here
    • Courses and subjects
    • Find a course
    • A-Z course list
    • Explore our subjects
    • Academic departments
    • Visiting the university
    • Explore: get to know us
    • Upcoming events
    • Virtual tours
    • Chat to our students and staff
    • Open days
    • Applicant days
    • Order a prospectus
    • Ask a question
    • Studying here
    • Accommodation and locations
    • Applying
    • Undergraduate
    • Postgraduate
    • Transferring from another university
    • The Student Contract
    • Clearing
    • International students
    • Fees and finance
    • Advice and help
    • Advice for students
    • Advice for parents and carers
    • Advice for schools and teachers
    • Managing your application
    • Undergraduate
    • Postgraduate
    • Apprenticeships
  • Research
    • Research and knowledge exchange
    • Research and knowledge exchange organisation
    • The Global Challenges
    • Centres of Research Excellence (COREs)
    • Research Excellence Groups (REGs)
    • Our research database
    • Information for business
    • Community University Partnership Programme (CUPP)
    • Postgraduate research degrees
    • PhD research disciplines and programmes
    • PhD funding opportunities and studentships
    • How to apply for your PhD
    • Research environment
    • Investing in research careers
    • Strategic plan
    • Research concordat
    • News, events, publications and films
    • Featured research and knowledge exchange projects
    • Research and knowledge exchange news
    • Inaugural lectures
    • Research and knowledge exchange publications and films
    • Academic staff search
  • About us
  • Business and employers
  • Alumni, supporters and giving
  • Current students
  • Staff
  • Accessibility
Search our site
Image of checkland building falmer campus
About us
  • Your university
  • Governance and structure
  • Working with us
  • Statistics and legal
  • News and events
  • Contact us
  • News and events
    • News and events
    • News
    • Events
    • Coronavirus
    • Livestream
    • Open lectures
    • Term dates
  • News
    • News
    • 2022
    • 2021
    • 2020
    • 2019
    • 2018
    • 2017
    • 2016
    • 2015
    • 2014
    • 2013
  • 2016
    • 2016
  • Empathy and Risk

Empathy and Risk

Inaugural lecture from Professor David Cotterrell.

Publication 12 October 2016

Event date 17 November 2016

Please enable targeting cookies in order to view this video content on our website, or you can watch the video on YouTube.

For the past few years, Cotterrell has been embarking on an eclectic series of field trips and producing a series of experimental artworks to clarify his experience and understanding of fear, risk and empathetic failure. 

He had been feeling uncomfortable with war being described as a declared state rather than a location on an iterative scale of social disintegration. While accepting that some measure of polarisation is a pre-requisite for conflict, Cotterrell has been considering the iterative progressive cycle of disengagement that is required to allow barriers to be constructed, long before they're recognised as fortifications. His research seeks to consider the staged challenges to empathy that occur long prior to the descent into the polarised engagement of military forces. 

 Where risk has been identified, and measures are variably employed as responsive protocols, a situation of distancing occurs – most obviously between the observer and the subject, but also between the perceptions of different observers. This lecture explores the contradictory nature of mutually exclusive versions of truth, the way in which risk can be a catalyst to the creation of partial truths and the possibility of the loss of pluralist narratives as communities and individuals are denied access to each others’ vantage points.

In his inaugural lecture Cotterrell will describe the motivation and observations of his ongoing research. At a time of increasing political polarisation, he will discuss an artists’ idiosyncratic search to find languages with which to explore the failure of dialogue.

Inaugural poster David Cotterrell

Empathy and Risk

David Cotterrell
Professor of Fine Art

Thursday 17 November 2016 at 6.30 pm.

Sallis Benney Theatre
Grand Parade
Moulsecoomb

Watch other inaugural lectures online

Back to top
  • Facebook
  • Twitter
  • Instagram
  • TikTok
  • YouTube
  • LinkedIn icon

Contact us

University of Brighton
Mithras House
Lewes Road
Brighton
BN2 4AT

Main switchboard 01273 600900

Course enquiries

Sign up for updates

University contacts

Report a problem with this page

Quick links Quick links

  • Courses
  • Open days
  • Order a prospectus
  • Academic departments
  • Academic staff
  • Professional services departments
  • Jobs
  • Privacy and cookie policy
  • Accessibility statement
  • Libraries
  • Term dates
  • Maps
  • Graduation
  • Site information
  • Online shop
  • COVID-19

Information for Information for

  • Current students
  • International students
  • Media/press
  • Careers advisers/teachers
  • Parents/carers
  • Business/employers
  • Alumni/supporters
  • Suppliers
  • Local residents