
Talk
Inside/Out: Exploring the Fetishisation of 'The Troubled Artist’ - Aindrea Emelife Talk
21 May 2016
Platform Southwark
London, United Kingdom
Varies according to events
Varies according to events (mainly free)
Platform Southwark, is proud to announce the inaugural Stories of Being - a new festival exploring mental health and wellbeing, through the arts
Platform Southwark, is proud to announce the inaugural Stories of Being - a new festival conceived and developed in the temporary multi-disciplinary project space, dedicated to encouraging and promoting groundbreaking art, music and performance.
The festival was initiated by Being, an organisation set up by artist Ed Haslam, writer / director Karis Halsall and director Joe Ball, through the shared belief that, as well as our physical health, we all need to be aware of our mental health - and that conversations around this need to be reframed. With this in mind, Haslam, Halsall and Ball founded Being with the intention that it will grow into a supportive network of creatives, interested in discussing mental health in their work.
In collaboration with the Young Vic Taking Part & Directors Program, Being have co-curated a five-day festival to do exactly that. Through a series of informative, insightful and inspiring poetry, music and theatre performances, workshops, talks, installations and short films, Stories of Being will open up new creative discourses around subjects related to mental health and wellbeing - and encourage audiences to continue these conversations after the event.
Coinciding with Mental Health Awareness Week (UK), Stories of Being will run at Platform Southwark from 18th – 22nd May, 2016.
PROGRAMME HIGHLIGHTS INCLUDE:
THEATRE:
Four critically acclaimed theatre companies will present a series of double-bill performances across the festival – ranging from the honest and funny to the moving and deeply thought-provoking.
18th – 20th May 7.00pm
21st – 22nd May, 3.00pm & 7.00pm
WORKSHOPS:
Workshops across the festival, include:
· Finn Beames For their first major London production, Bodycorps collaborated with leading molecular psychiatrists to create an intimate opera for seven vocalists and nine musicians. From feelings of overwhelming loneliness to confrontations with cutting-edge genetics research, The Anatomy of Melancholy sets humanity's most common mental health problem to music. Founder and Artistic Director Finn Beames, will run a workshop for people interested in creating work about mental health.
ART INSTALLATIONS & POETRY:
A number of installation and performance artists, with a specific interest in mental health and wellbeing will present work throughout Platform, over the festival:
· ‘Ship of Fools’ by the vacuum cleaner. The story of what happened when the artist, anticipating a major decline in his mental health, but wishing to avoid admission to an acute psychiatric ward, served a mental health section on himself. In May 2011 he opened his own Asylum, wrote his own mental health act and detained himself under its rules. During this period, artists and non-artists were invited into the space, to collaborate on new work.
TALKS:
Over the festival’s weekend, Platform will become a hub of conversation, with free talks, panel discussion and debates hosted by creative, clinicians and those who have experienced mental health issues themselves. These include:
21st-22nd May
Mathew Xia is the director of the Young Vic’s current production of Blue Orange. Prejudice and the best ways to treat people with mental health concerns are issues confronting the main character in Blue Orange, which will be contextualised in this discussion hosted by Imogen Brodie, Director of the Young Vic’s Taking Part program.
James Shillcock is the founding director of Vivid Drinks, the leading Matcha green tea drinks brand, with a mission to improve mental wellbeing. Eva Liparova is producer of Black Dog Gold Fish and worked in the tech industry for many years before moving into theatre. Together they will host an eclectic panel of entrepreneurs, who are breaking ground to take depression and anxiety out of the shadows and into everyday conversation.
How have your mental health struggles improved your creative practice? What can we therefore gift to those struggling in the wider community? How do we honour our idiosyncrasies, our practice, ourselves and our stories?
FILM:
A number of films addressing subjects around mental health and wellbeing, will be screened between talks, including:
· Stories of Being: a short film directed by Mollie Mills and produced by Silverfish Media, motivated by the fact that suicide is the biggest killer of young men in the UK. Young men are talking about everything: sex, drugs, parties and politics, so why is there a silence when it comes to mental health? Through this film, we are taken on a journey through the voices of three protagonists talking about how this silence has had crippling effects. Mollie Mills is known for her raw style, celebrating youth culture and Silverfish for their documentary, campaign and brand films that inspire change. The new film will premiere at the festival.
Have you been to this event? Share your insights and give it a review below.