Martin O' Brien: Regimes of Hardship #2

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Regimes of Hardship #2 (10th May) considers the bio-politics of medicine. O'Brien challenges the ideology of the perfect body and addresses the social construction of health. The second installation performance in the series blurs the distinctions between the healthy and sick body as separate entities within the human condition in relation to O'Brien's physical condition, drawing explicitly on the pathology of Cystic Fibrosis. Regimes of Hardship is a practice as research project consisting of three performance installations taking place over a three month period at ]performance s p a c e [in Hackney Wick. In the year of the London Olympic Games O'Brien uses endurance in order to examine and challenge contemporary ideologies of health and illness and how this relates to the social construction of medicine and the body. The three installation-performances will examine the ways in which self-imposed endurance could act as a personal pathological resistance to illness. Regimes of Hardship attempts to communicate, interrogate and extend discourses around the body and medicine including areas such as pain and discipline within the medical regime, health and illness, the medical and art gaze and issues of embodiment. Address: ]performance s p a c e[ 6 Hamlet Industrial Estate, White Post Lane, London E9 5EN Overground: Hackney Wick Bus: 26.30.276.388.488.UL1