The talk Speaking With the Dead: On Empathy, Trauma and Collaboration by artist Rajkamal Kahlon will consider the role of trauma in creating both resistance to and new possibilities of collaboration in three recent projects: Did You Kiss the Dead Body?, Staying with Trouble, and Dear Yugoslavia, I regret to inform you… What begins as a hyper-empathic and intimate encounter with traumatic histories of violence has led to unexpected collaborative processes that include rethinking of the traditional spaces and conditions for how artistic work can be made, a shift in the concept of audience to include new and provisional forms of community, and how artistic research can be made more meaningful when performed through shared conversation and debate across disciplinary boundaries.