Red Head Reflection

Prototypes’ ‘A Machine They’re Secretly Building’ is a sprint through the idea that at all times, we are under surveillance. The audience walked out of this political performance wanting to throw their phones away, as facts were hurled at us one after another, teaching us that everything we do is monitored, every piece of information is kept, and the government believes this is okay. On 22 nd March the company performed the show at Attenborough Arts Centre, Leicester. Edward Snowden has observed: “Arguing that you don’t care about the right to privacy because you have nothing to hide is no different than saying that you don’t care about free speech because you have nothing to say.”, and this was a poignant message throughout the piece, which really gave us as an audience something to think about. The performance had an ironic and playful style, as actors Rachel Baynton and Gillian Lees ate secret messages, wrapped each other in cling film, and let balloons free from a filing ca...

Commissioned by Attenborough Arts Centre, visual artist Mel Brimfield created the ‘Talking Heads’ exhibition, which draws predominantely from themes of mental health. The work displays an array of multi-media instillations, film, and comic style images, depicting the experiences of those living from and recovering from psychosis. It draws from Brimfield’s own research at the Department of Psychosis Studies at Kings College Institute of Psychiatry, Psychology and Neuroscience, and the National Psychosis Unit at Bethlem Hospital, London. ‘I cannot shake the idea that I am an imposter’ ‘My father refuses to accept my brothers’ diagnosis of schizophrenia’ ‘As the sands pass through the hourglass, I am conscious of a sense of increasing regret with no fixed palpable source’ Just a few of the phrases from Brimfield’s ‘NUTS: The Remembrance of Things Past’, where the peanuts character Lucy is used as a psychiatrist to the artist, who’s speech bubbles of therapy sessions fill the ...