JOY Cafe by Joy Bomb London

About

Feeling socially malnourished and thirsty for meaningful contact post-pandemic?

Joy Bomb London (aka artist Amy Broch) returns with JOY Café, a new pop-up site-specific installation where people can chat, play, laugh and nourish their ‘social biome’.

The artist has once again transformed a former disused shop front in Mayfair, central London, into a multi-sensory work of art and live performance.

Members of the public are invited to join Illuminate Productions and Joy Bomb London at the JOY Café. Bring a friend, come alone or choose to chat with a JOY Bomb character.

Enjoy a 20-minute socially nutritious experience and visual treat over a drink and a snack and become part of this unique pop-up site-specific installation with live actors.

Participants can sit and relax in the shop window at JOY Café while becoming part of the show amid a kitsch kaleidoscope of vivid clashing colours, a fur carpet, inflatable dogs and messages spreading positive vibes to all. Numerous photo opportunities will be provided, and visitors are strongly encouraged to capture their fun time.

The installation, which will coincide with World Mental Health Day 2022 on Monday October 10, is designed to help people reconnect and reinvigorate their ‘social biome’.

According to Jeffrey Hall, professor of communication studies at the University of Kansas, your social biome is the ecosystem of relationships and interactions that shapes an individual’s emotional, psychological and physical health. But due to the Covid-19 pandemic, lockdown, social distancing concerns and the prevalence of home-working – it is likely to be severely damaged.

Amy, who was widowed during the pandemic in May 2020, invites members of the public to join her and Illuminate Productions at the JOY Café. “Whether you are seeking some healing solitude or conversation – come and enjoy the benefits of a nutritiously dense social snack,” she said. “Daily interactions big and small make up your social biome. Small talk is more nutritious than we think - it helps to boost your social biome and banish loneliness.”

Commissioned by London not-for-profit arts organisation Illuminate Productions, JOY Café will be open from Wednesday October 5 – Sunday October 16, 12pm - 8pm. Just a few minutes’ walk from Frieze London at Regents Park, this will be the final installation at Illuminate Productions’ home on Brook Street, directly opposite the infamous Claridge’s Hotel, before the building is redeveloped next year. The building is stepped in history and was part of the former headquarters of hair salon Vidal Sassoon for 20 years.

Caroline Jones, producer at Illuminate Productions, said: “For our final installation in Brook Street we are happy that Joy Bomb is back! This time we’re not keeping the public at arm’s length but are instead inviting visitors to come, interact and socialise with us, while also becoming part of the installation. This is something we were previously unable to do due to Covid.”

In lockdown Amy created a series of kitsch, candy-coloured socially distanced shop front installations at 48 Brook Street, Mayfair, to celebrate ‘fun for fun’s sake’, including JOY Found Me and All I want for Christmas is…JOY. Life-size whimsical characters were brought to life by live actors and interacted with onlookers to create joy bombs – the artistic equivalent to photo bombing.

Last April she was also commissioned to create a series of feel-good artworks at LondonBridge Station and the surrounding area spreading JOY, LOVE and positive vibes to all.

Joy Bomb London creates site-specific interactive installations that transform ordinary spaces into mini-worlds – playful explosions of sunny, squishy, furry, rainbow-filled delights. The artist draws from childhood nostalgia, pop culture and the irreverent contents of her shimmering, candy-coated brain. Her work provides opportunities to explore, connect and laugh.

Joy Bomb London’s creative mission is to celebrate FUN for FUN’s sake and to make memorable moments happy ones.

Book a free 20-minute slot in the JOY Café here: https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/joy-cafe-tickets-424011779647

For further information visit: www.illuminateproductions.co.uk and Joy Bomb London, https://www.joybomblondon.com/

Participants are encouraged to share their JOY Café experience with artist Amy Broch on her Instagram page @joybomblondon

Ends

About Joy Bomb London

• Amy Broch has herself found solace for her own mental health as a conceptional artist following the loss of her late Californian-born husband, Sean Healey in May 2020. Two years earlier he was diagnosed with a motor neuron disease, known as ALS.
• A devoted philanthropist, father and husband, Sean Healey was chair and chief executive of an American global investment management company, Affiliated Managers Group. The couple began exploring every treatment available to treat and slow the progression of the disease.
• Learning that happiness was linked to better treatment outcomes and longevity for ALS patients was a big moment. Suddenly, the colourful, playful installations Amy had been creating and experimenting with for years had a greater significance.
• Proceeds from each of her installations support the Sean M. Healey and AMG Center for ALS at Massachusetts General Hospital in the US. It is the largest hospital-based research program in the world and supports early-stage trials of promising ALS treatments.

About Illuminate Productions

• Illuminate Productions is a London-based non-profit art organisation, commissioning and producing contemporary art in unusual yet accessible environments, with direct public interaction. They bring together emerging and established artists, organisations and individuals in experimental partnerships to make site-specific work in challenging contexts.
• Illuminate Productions develop opportunities for artists to create ground-breaking, high impact art installations and interactive experiences in unusual spaces; to engage and inspire a universal audience. Over the past 15 years they have commissioned, curated and produced more than 250 exhibitions and events.
• They strive to develop and build on past arts and well-being projects in the future, through interactive artworks.
• Past projects include Scream the House Down by Marcus Lyall, an interactive, art installation designed for lockdown that invited members of the public to vocalise their inner frustrations to power a large-scale light installation. PiP’s Plant Parlour by Mileece, a bio-reactive, plant-controlled mobile installation designed to open pathways to relaxation and emotional healing through nature, art and sound. On Your Wavelength by Marcus Lyall, where participants minds powered a light and sound installation, Drive Dead Slow (The Dodgems of Your Mind), where a collective of visual, sound and light artists collaboratively created the world’s first artist-designed bumper car arena, and a full-scale wax house that slowly melted and an Upside Down House by Alex Chinneck.
• They also curated and produced, Merge Festival, an annual arts, music and performance festival drawing on the rich heritage of London's Bankside, and DRIFT, a series of strategically placed site-specific artworks in, alongside, and over the river Thames.

For further information visit: www.illuminateproductions.co.uk