Exhibition

The Little Theatre of Disease and Desire

25 Jan 2008 – 24 Feb 2008

Regular hours

Friday
10:30 – 17:00
Saturday
12:00 – 16:00
Sunday
12:00 – 16:00
Monday
14:00 – 17:00
Tuesday
10:30 – 17:00
Wednesday
10:30 – 17:00
Thursday
10:30 – 17:00

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Travel Information

  • 17, 21, 35, 40, 43, 47, 48, 133, 141, 149, 343, 381, 521, RV1
  • London Bridge
  • London Bridge
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About

The Little Theatre of Disease and Desire is new project by artist Daniel Baker, Artist in Residence at The Old Operating Theatre Museum and Herb Garret. The project centres on a paper model theatre, a contemporary version of the toy theatres that were popular during the 18th and early 19th Century in Europe.


Daniel Baker's theatre has been built to display a series of scenes from a play entitled The Simbysial Case. The story of the play is the story of a disease. The central character is The Patient, a character called The Doctor often accompanies him, and together they try to uncover the nature of the strange illness that The Patient is suffering. The narrative is a journey of discovery: a voyage of mystery and danger that never leaves The Patient's room. On this journey he meets a cast of unusual characters such as The Two Headed Leech, The Examinator, The Tiny Surgeon, and The Flock of Bloodied Aprons.

These scenes and characters, from the detail of a bedside table to the grotesque bodies of The Patient's freakish visitors, have been meticulously constructed from paper. The Theatre is a self-contained world, a microcosm painted with delicate watercolour, an intimate space that is at once delightful, and yet full of suffering and confusion.

The scale of the paper theatre is the perfect setting for a narrative of illness, as this small ephemeral toy centres on the interplay between inside and outside, domestic setting and historical narrative, objective medical gaze, and subjective experience. Diseases affect the human body in intimate ways as the story of symptoms, diagnosis, medicines, and surgery, is enacted on a small personal stage, but diseases are never experienced as simple physical facts of science: they are powerful cultural, social, and psychological processes that always are full of mystery and are often unexplainable.

The project will be exhibited throughout the museum. The Little Theatre of Disease and Desire will take centre stage in the Old Operating Theatre, and the changing scenes and characters will be displayed as slideshow animations.

Daniel Baker is the creator of the cult comic series Donkey Head, he also produces installations, illustrated books, and multi-media works that explore liminal overlapping geographies between personal, localised narratives and historical contexts. He has exhibited widely, including a solo show at The Modern Institute in Glasgow. You can visit his websites at www.danielbaker.org and www.donkeyhead.org

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