Media
Cologne Prison: Prisoners with (from left) Angela Findlay, Rolf Krumsiek (Minister of Justice), Hans Thönnessen (Governor Director of Prisons), Renate Canisius (Mayor of Cologne)
UK MEDIA
PRESS: IN MY GRANDFATHER’S SHADOW
Angela Findlay tells Katie Jarvis of the immense struggle she has had to come to terms with her German roots, brilliantly documented in her book, In My Grandfather’s Shadow.
Very honoured to be the latest contributor to The Forgiveness Project’s collection of stories by people who have explored the possibility of forgiveness in the face of extreme experiences and pain.
Mandy Robotham talks to Stroud artist and public speaker turned writer, Angela Findlay, on the difficulties of her family’s complex past.
PRESS: ART & ART IN PRISONS
Artist Angela Findlay tells us about her artistic journey...
Please feel free to read my article Art Behind Bars – how can art make a difference to the life of an offender? in the Autumn edition of The Arts Society magazine:
RADIO
BBC Radio West – Monday 21st - Friday 25th November 2022
In Conversation with Chris Baxter
BBC Radio Bristol - Saturday 27th August 2022
Live conversation with Steve Yabsley
BBC Radio Berkshire - Monday 18th July 2022
In conversation with Sarah Walker
BBC Radio Newcastle - Monday 18th July 2022
In conversation with Laura Marshall
BBC Radio Sussex and Surrey - Wednesday 13th July 2022
In conversation with Sarah Gorrell
Talk Radio Europe - Tuesday 12th July 2022
Hannah Murray Afternoon Show
BBC Radio Somerset - Monday 11th July 2022
Live conversation with Simon Parkin
BBC Radio Gloucestershire - Monday 4th July 2022
Live conversation with Anna King
Click to listen to Angela speaking in:
Fresh Start – The role of art by Lucy Ash – BBC World Service, 2009
Minutes:11.20-12.56 and 20.25-21.55
PODCASTS
For German speakers, I feature in Episode 30, (3 minutes in) of this German podcast exploring the emotional legacy of WW2 in Germany.
5th July, 2023
In this episode, I interviewed the Anglo-German artist Angela Findlay who with her amazing book "in my grandfather's shadow" talked about her German grandfather who was a general in the German army. She described how trauma, guilt and shame gets transferred inter generationally; how to forgive parents; what needs to be done to understand trauma better.
27. May 2023
Angela Findlay joins Chris Sams and Alina Nowobilska to talk about her grandfather, a German Second World War General, and her hunt to find out more and to better understand transgenerational guilt.
10. April, 2023
Angela Findlay was determined to find out if her grandfather, Karl von Graffen, was a Nazi and what he did on the Eastern front. An artist and speaker, Angela spent her youth feeling a constant sense of guilt and shame but couldn't figure out why. It wasn't until her 40s that she turned to her German roots and discovered that she was enmeshed in the horrors of Nazi Germany and the Second World War.
She knew her German grandfather had been a Wehrmacht general in the Second World War but never really understand what that meant. She set out on a research mission to find out what her grandfather had been involved in and what he'd known. Her journey took her across Russia to the swamps of the Volkhov Front where he’d fought in Operation Barbarossa in Hitler's war of annihilation.
Produced by Mariana Des Forges and edited by Dougal Patmore
Inherited Trauma: Angela Findlay on bearing the guilt of our ancestors
If you learnt of darkness within your family tree - if you discovered an ancestor caused unimaginable pain - would you feel shame? Would you feel guilt?
Bearing the guilt of our forebears may seem counterintuitive, after all, we’re not to blame for their actions. And yet it’s more common than you’d imagine. In her debut book ‘In My Grandfather’s Shadow’, Angela Findlay comes face-to-face with her own inherited trauma, uncovering the life of her dead grandfather, who was a decorated German General during the Second World War.
In this episode we learn how meaningful and life-changing it can be to learn about and uncover your family heritage, we explore the notion of places holding information and memories of the past, and we wrestle with the concepts of ‘good’ and ‘bad’.
LIVE INTERVIEWS
Angela Findlay In Conversation with Daniel Cowling, author and historian, at Chelsea History Festival, 22nd September 2022
TV
Hidden Talent: locked away
Episode 1, BBC2, June, 2005
Laurence Llewelyn-Bowen puts his classical fine-art training to use at Her Majesty’s Prison Stafford. Angela was invited to facilitate the warm-up day, leading both prisoners and Llewelyn-Bowen through a series of her colour exercises resulting in a large scale piece of work.
“IT WAS STAGGERING TO WATCH ANGELA. HER ABILITY TO ENTHUSE AND INSPIRE BROKE BARRIERS AND TRANSCENDED BOUNDARIES.”
Laurence Llewelyn-Bowen while filming “Hidden Talent: locked away” for BBC2 at HMP Stafford
