The co-production of health research ECR network present: The Directors
When:
—
Venue:
Birkbeck 43 Gordon Square
In this event, chaired by Sarah Marks, founding director of Birkbeck Centre for Interdisciplinary Research on Mental Health the film screening will be followed by a discussion with Marcus Coates and Kiara Wickremasinghe on artist practice as a way of collaborating with people with lived experience in the production of knowledge about mental health.
The Directors is a collaboration between artist Marcus Coates and five individuals with lived experiencesof psychosis. Following a prolonged period of research and development, each directed Coates in a film where he attempted to enact their experiences. Mark Banham, Lucy Dempster, Anthony Donohoe, Marcus Gordon, and Stephen Groves each chose a place of significance where they directed Coates to play themselves as they voiced instructions off camera. Commissionedby Artangel in London,UK,The Directors was originally presented in five locations in and around Churchill Gardens Estate in the London borough of Pimlico. Coates’ research began in 2017 in South London and Maudsley NHS Foundation Trust where he worked alongside psychiatrist Dr Isabel Valli, observing her consultations with patients. The focus of his research considered the dynamics of personal understanding and empathy and the role of the wider community and public attitudes. The Directors seeks to establish a creative and reciprocal dialogue between Coates and each director; a shared attempt to describe and understand the individuality and complexity of their experiences. For both Coates and the directors, initiating this empathetic process was motivated by a need to share the directors’ stories, together with the necessity to confront and reduce public stigma around psychosis.
You can find more about the films here:
https://www.whatsgoingon.org.uk/
Kiara Wickremasinghe is an anthropologist, mental health practitioner, and musician. Her PhD research, which she conducted through the lens of lived experience, formed part of a collaborative ethnographic study on Peer-supported Open Dialogue in the NHS.
Sarah Marks is Director of the Birkbeck Centre for Interdisciplinary Research on Mental Health. She works across the social sciences, history and policy studies and is interested in new methods for understanding lived experience in mental health.
Marcus Coates was born in 1968 in London, UK. Coates lives and works in London. By exploring the lived realities of people, animals and nature, Marcus Coates attempts to understand how we relate to each other and the world around us. He re-enacts states of being - a process of radical empathy - to question what it means to be alive now, our history and future. https://www.katemacgarry.com/artists/36-marcus-coates/
Trigger Warning
Please note the film contains scenes that some viewers may find distressing. Personal experiences are discussed including psychosis, hearing voices, paranoia, delusions, hallucinations, intrusive thoughts, obsessive compulsive disorder, and anxiety. Viewer discretion is advised.
This is a free event open to all. Spaces are limited so please book.
CREDITS
Marcus Coates, The Directors, 2022
The Directors is produced by Artangel and commissioned with Art Fund Support.
With special thanks to The Executive Producers for their generosity: Andrew Abdulezer, Martine d’Anglejan-Chatillon, James Brett, Robert Devereux, Gerry Fox, Gabriela Galcerán Ball, Kate MacGarry, Gabrielle Rifkind & Jonathan Levy, The Sigrid Rausing Trust and those who wish to remain anonymous.
The Directors is part of The Artangel Collection, an initiative to bring outstanding film and video works, commissioned and produced by Artangel, to galleries and museums across the UK. The Artangel Collection has been developed in partnership with Tate, is generously supported by the Esmée Fairbairn Foundation and The Foyle Foundation and uses public funding from Arts Council England.
Contact name:
Matthew Barrington