Happiness Now? — OUTREACH: ‘Happiness is...' and ‘The Oasis Space' (by Anna Lopez)

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SAT 09 March (‘Happiness is...' day event) Broadway Market SUN 10 March (‘Happiness is...' day event) Tesco, Morning Lane SAT 16 March (‘Happiness is...' day event) Ridley Road Market Outreach programme as part of Happiness Now? As part of the community outreach programme Anna Lopez designed Happiness is... an over-sized message board to collect resident's thoughts in relation to happiness. The board will travel to three populated areas of Hackney: Broadway Market (Saturday 9 March 2013) outside Tesco in Morning Lane (Sunday 10 March) and Ridley Road Market (Saturday 16 March 2013). Lopez will engage people passing by in a conversation on happiness and encourage residents to share with the rest of the community their thoughts, hopes and personal memories. Comments will progressively be photographed and uploaded on the exhibition website to form a collective archive of thoughts. The Oasis Space is a 2-hour session led by Anna at the Women Refugee Centre (Dalston, http://www.refugeewomen.org.uk) and at Mind Yourself (Angel, http://www.mind-yourself.co.uk), with the Irish Migrant Women group and Mind Yourself's in-house mental health carers. The workshops explore the notion of happiness by encouraging participants to gain a fresh view of themselves and of their potential in a playful way. The Oasis is a safe space and also an internal state for us to reflect on our values, reconnect with our body and disclose the personal resources we might have forgotten we had. Lopez merges different methodologies such as cooperative learning, appreciative enquiry and sonic soundscapes created by Spherickal music producer. Using dance, role-play, sound immersion and simple meditation, participants will consider the value of happiness and how it extends to society at large. (sessions available only to the guests of the centers) Anna Lopez draws from Buddhist philosophy in thinking about happiness as a never-ending process rather than an end point. She graduated from London Metropolitan University with an MA in Fine Art (2010) and holds a degree in Psychology from La Cattolica, Milan. She works with participatory interventions as well as with installations of text, sound and images. Her practice is a commentary on the ever-increasing complexity and detachment in the way we relate to each other and our surroundings. Lopez' manipulation of everyday space stimulates people to move differently through it: to stop and listen or to take part with their own personal stories. Lopez is also the co-founder of a project in Newham Royal Docks that promotes community empowerment by mobilizing residents and stakeholder groups (www.momentumproject.org.uk). In recent years, she has worked on several media campaigns to raise political awareness and critical thinking among sixth form students in East London. www.annalopez.net