International Festival of Contemporary Theatre
Programme
Madlove: A Designer Asylum Artist Talk
10 September 16:00, Festival Centre | Free entrance
Is it possible to go mad in a positive way? How would you create a safe place in which to do so? If you designed your own asylum, what would it look like?
Madlove is a new project by artist and activist the vacuum cleaner based on his personal experience of mental health hospitals, and his desire to find a positive space to experience mental distress… and enlightenment.
In this informal artist talk the vacuum cleaner will present the outcomes of a workshop at Riga Psychiatric Centre, where he has worked with patients to imagine what a utopia and wilfully optimist model of a mental health hospital could be like and to create a desirable and playful space to ‘go mad’, countering the popular myth that mental illness is dangerous and scary.
The workshop and talk is part of the expanded performance space and scenography programme, Shared Space: Music, Weather, Politics, supported by EU programme Culture.
About artist
the vacuum cleaner is an art and activism collective of one.
From one man shows to large scale participatory actions, the vacuum cleaner’s approach is both subtle and extreme, but always candid, provocative and playful. His work has been exhibited throughout the UK including commissions from Tate Modern, ICA and Liverpool Biennial as well as BBC4, Channel 4 and Arte. He regularly presents work internationally both on the streets and in art spaces.
the vacuum cleaner is an Artsadmin Associate Artist and a co-founder of the Laboratory of Insurrectionary Imagination (2004 – 2009).
Credits
By and with: the vacuum cleaner and Hannah Hull
Production: Anna Zagorska / New Theatre Institute of Latvia
10
September
16:00
Free entrance
Language
In English
Duration
1h
Address
Website
Supported by
