Rest & its discontents

About

Rest & its discontents is a major new exhibition exploring the dynamics of rest, stress, exhaustion, sound, noise, work and mind-wandering, in an evolving immersive laboratory of artists’ moving image, performance, drawing, poetry, data, sound, music and debate.

Rest & its discontents draws on Hubbub, a two-year residency undertaken by 50 international artists, writers, social scientists, broadcasters, humanities researchers, scientists and mental health experts in The Hub at Wellcome Collection in London, and led by Durham University.

In conjunction with the exhibition, BBC Radio 4 will announce the results of the largest ever survey on rest, in The Anatomy of Rest, a three-part series presented by broadcaster, writer and Hubbub resident Claudia Hammond. The results draw on the responses of over 17,000 members of the public, while Rest & its discontents brings to life a diverse and creative enquiry into the culture and science of repose and its opposites.

Highlights of Rest & its discontents include:

Nina Garthwaite’s radio for mind wanderers, Default Mode Radio Network, a recording studio and listening space around which Rest & its discontents revolves. Featuring an infinitely changing audio stream that will micro-broadcast poetry, music, sound and spoken word in the gallery, on Resonance 104.4FM, The Guardian website, and as a series of audio features, live discussions and podcasts.

Christian Nold’s audio installation and noise-monitoring network Proto-typing a new Heathrow Airport invites the public to listen in real time to the effect of aircraft on natural environments and wildlife in two London locations.

The Floating Thirty-Nine by Patrick Coyle consists of thirty-nine solar-powered objects floating on the large expanse of water immediately outside the gallery. Storing energy by day, and illuminated at night, they allude to the categories of labour prohibited on the Sabbath, the day of rest.

Peckham Fiction by James Wilkes is inspired by the Peckham Experiment, an interwar health centre that utilised modernist glass and concrete architecture to observe human activity in a specific environmental context. Wilkes’ fictional text extends across the gallery’s huge windows, disrupting the view of the outside world through the act of reading.

Static is an installation by Joceline Howe which explores the semiotics of visual noise and rest through film, dance and performance, creating spaces where the choreographed, improvised and interactive collide.

In Breath, a filmed flute performance, composer Antonia Barnett-McIntosh explores the concept of breath as musical rest, and breathlessness as a form of exhaustion where in and out breaths are used in the creation of sound.

Cartographies of Rest by Josh Berson and LUSTLab is an intimate, interactive installation relaying location-specific personal statements of well-being and social rhythms of activity and rest in urban environments in response to visitors’ movements through the work.

Teaching us to relax by Ayesha Nathoo explores the history of modern therapeutic relaxation through a display of publications concerning subjects such as key health messages, relaxation instructions, alternative health, physiotherapy, physical education and antenatal self-help.

Soundings by SJ Fowler is a sound and video installation documenting Fowler’s sound poetry performances in response to rest-related images, manuscripts and books from the Wellcome Library.