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Dolly Sen, Help the Normals
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Detail from A is for Awkward, Rachel Rowan Olive
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Thompson Hall, Universal Credit
Exhibition
Art & Protest: What's There to be Mad About?
7 Sep 2019 – 8 Nov 2019
Regular hours
- Saturday
- 09:30 – 17:00
- Wednesday
- 09:30 – 17:00
- Thursday
- 09:30 – 17:00
- Friday
- 09:30 – 17:00
Cost of entry
Free
Address
- Bethlem Royal Hospital, Monks Orchard Road
- London
England - BR3 3BX
- United Kingdom
Travel Information
- The bus stop directly outside the main entrance is Bethlem Royal Hospital, with buses 356, 119 or 198 stopping there.
- Eden Park Station (30 mins from London Bridge) followed by a 15 min walk or 5 min bus ride (356 bus towards Shirley). East Croydon Station (15 mins from London Victoria), followed by roughly a 30 min bus ride (119 bus towards Bromley or 198 towards Shrublands).
Bethlem Gallery is pleased to present this group exhibition of artworks and protest ephemera curated by artist and activist Dolly Sen. Dolly became involved in mental health activism after her own experience as a psychiatric patient and as a witness to other’s experience.
About
There are people who rise up against what has hurt them, whether it be psychiatric coercion, benefit cut deaths, austerity, or any other form of oppression. Art & Protest: What’s there to be mad about? is a celebration and acknowledgement of the role of art in political activism by those who take a stand.
Dolly says: “This exhibition will honour our right to be ourselves and to be treated with humanity and respect, and even our right to stay alive, by using art to confront, to embolden ourselves with, to stand tall, and to show others they are not alone.
“We need to protest to reject the status we have been given. It is art to create an effect and affect; it is to change things; it is switching the power relation to make perpetrators look like twats.
Art is our armour to go into battle with; a way to create a world where we can claim some of our soul back.”
The mental health protest movement has been around for decades, this exhibition presents and rejoices in some of the current and recent work coming out of the UK and aims to provide a platform for dialogue around art, activism and the mental health care system.
Featuring: Vince Laws, Nick Lloyd, Vacuum Cleaner and Hana Madness, Bobby Baker, Rachel Rowan Olive, gobscure, John Hoggett, Thompson Hall, Recovery in the Bin, Hamja Ahsan.
Art & Protest: What’s there to be mad about? Is running in parallel to the Bethlem Museum of the Mind’s exhibition Impatient! Stories of service user advocacy.
