Violence as art: novel explores life as a high-risk performance artist

As complex and original as Accident is – the book explores the difficult relationship between a single mother who’s a medical doctor and a son who’s a risk-taking performance artist – it still qualifies, for author and doctor Dawn Garisch, as ”writing about what you know”.

You’re fascinated by the interface between art and medicine. What was the process of examining that via fictional characters like?

Much of my work explores the perceived split in our society between art and science, poetry and analysis, symbol and fact.

In Accident, a doctor, Carol, uses reason to address the conflicts of illness and injury in the bodies of her patients.

Her performance artist son, Max, uses his own body as a vehicle for often violent disturbance in the name of art. Both are using different approaches to try to wake people up to their destructive behaviours. read more