Join Neesa Suncheuri Sunar for a workshop exploring the mind’s eye, and the role of mental imagery evoked through reading.

Beginning with the concept of Ekphrasis, an ancient Greek rhetorical device, participants will learn how mental imagery emerges from reading. Neesa will also introduce aphantasia, a lesser-known type of neurodiversity causing image-free thinking. This presentation emphasizes that mental imagery runs on a spectrum, from dark to highly vivid, and that all ways of mental imagery are equally valid.

About Neesa Suncheuri Sunar

Neesa Suncheuri Sunar (she/her) is a PhD researcher at the University of Salford, and a member of the Leverhulme Trust Aural Diversity Doctoral Research Hub (LAURA). Her research investigates the lived experience of musicians with auditory aphantasia; this is the inability to create sound, music and inner speech in the mind’s ear as actual sound. (Neesa herself has this condition.) Originally from New York City, she brings an interdisciplinary background in classical music performance and education (on viola and violin), and also she is a masters-level clinical social worker who has worked in the NYC public health sector as a psychotherapist under supervision. Most broadly, Neesa aims to spread awareness about aphantasia and its impact on cognition across artistic disciplines.