Tate Exchange, 2017
Tate Exchange is a ground-breaking new programme from the Tate which will invite the public to come together with international artists and over fifty Associates annually to collaborate, test ideas and discover new perspectives on life, through art.
This free programme will take place in the dedicated, spectacular spaces of Tate Exchange in the Switch House at Tate Modern.
Over the weekend of the 4th and 5th March Vital Arts, one of the UK’s leading arts and wellbeing organisations, will be presenting a showcase of ‘Arts in Health.’ We are inviting the public to join discussions and share their own experiences of arts in a hospital setting. We are asking the public how they think art, design and clinical environment can affect mood, recovery and overall wellbeing. We are also hosting artist-led workshops exploring: the complexity of brain functionality; creativity within the restrictions of a renal diet; various aspects of memory; and the role humour can play in recovery.
Join us for our Bead My Brain workshop where participants can create their own necklaces using colour-coded beads relating to a colour-coded map of the brain. Take part in Mapping Memories and share recollections associated with visual triggers and their connection to key words. Participate in our Renal Recipe Swap, and contribute to our renal-friendly Recipe Wall. Watch students from Central Saint Martins create an animation that explores the challenges of a restricted renal diet and brings the cooking tips of a dialysis patient to life. Sample artist-created perfume made especially for Vital Arts from wildflowers growing around the Royal London Hospital. And, be sure to Tell us a Joke! Throughout Saturday we will be collecting your best health-related jokes, to be read out in a one-off special performance at 6pm.
TIMETABLE
SATURDAY 4th MAY / SUNDAY 5th MAY
12-8/5pm
Renal Recipe Swap – 12-6pm
Join Vital Arts and Central Saint Martins for a weekend exploring the challenges and possibilities of a restricted renal diet. Throughout the weekend we will be working on an animation that brings the cooking tips of a dialysis patient to life. We will also showcase recipe cards created by the patient community at the Royal London Hospital, as well as provide a friendly environment to exchange tips and ideas on how to create flavoursome meals within the limitations of a renal diet.
People on dialysis, their friends and their families are particularly welcome!
We are planning to progress this project into a Community Dialysis Cookery Book – so we are very interested in meeting potential partners; chefs, publishers and sponsors.
BACKGROUND
Dialysis is the treatment people undergo when they have suffered kidney failure. Patients on dialysis have a very restricted diet. They need to avoid foods with salt, potassium and phosphate. This includes numerous everyday ingredients including many fruits and vegetables. Patients have told us it is difficult to prepare flavoursome meals. People from ethnic minority groups are at greater risk of developing kidney failure and yet there are no culturally diverse cookery books available. Barts Health NHS Trust serves approximately 1300 dialysis patients from a great variety of ethnic backgrounds. Individual patients know how to adapt their own cuisine to the requirements of their limited diet. Vital Arts and Central Saint Martins are interested in creating platforms to share the dispersed culinary knowledge of this diverse community amongst themselves and other renal patient groups.
Central Saint Martins (University of the Arts London) is one of the world’s leading centres for art and design education. This project is led by Graphic Communication Design lecturer Luise Vormittag who is working with MA Graphic Commuication Design students Eva Afifah Rd, Savannah Bader and Daniela Barbeira on the event at Tate Exchange. www.arts.ac.uk/csm
Bead my Brain – 12-6pm
Image Credit Emma Warburton
Hosted by London Brain Project
Beading the brain bits that let you do, what you do!
What parts of the brain do we need, in order to do our daily activities? Getting out of bed, eating breakfast, going to school and (hopefully) paying attention to the teacher…all of these activities require lots of different parts of the brain to work together, as a network. Alongside Developmental Cognitive Neuroscientists, participants use colour coded maps of the brain to work out which parts they use when they are doing some of their own daily activities. They then gather together the beads which represent those parts of the brain (according to their colour) and thread them together to make their very own neural systems, representing a day in their life! This activity is ideal for children and adults.
London Brain Project is a social enterprise which aims to empower and inspire people to hold evidence- based and open conversations around disorders relating to the brain.
We do this by bringing the arts and sciences together through co-creation workshops and exhibitions. We hope the conversations we facilitate will have a positive impact on the lives of people affected by mental health conditions or neurological disorders and encourage society to value mental and neurological wellbeing. www.londonbrainproject.com
Mapping Memories - 12-6pm
Hosted by London Brain Project
An interactive layered experience to mimic memory recall and illustrate semantic links and nodes and networks of the brain. Through inviting people to share memories associated with visual triggers, and then describe the anecdotes in key words, they are then invited to draw a on a board connecting their visual trigger to other words on the board. Every participant will be able to share a story add a key word and then weave a thread. By the end of the day/s the board will be covered in connections changing perhaps the way an individual recalls that memory. Multi coloured lines will be used to represent different stages and types of memory. On the subject of memory break down and loss and retrieval - a key theme of dementia research.
London Brain Project is a social enterprise which aims to empower and inspire people to hold evidence- based and open conversations around disorders relating to the brain. We do this by bringing the arts and sciences together through co-creation workshops and exhibitions. We hope the conversations we facilitate will have a positive impact on the lives of people affected by mental health conditions or neurological disorders and encourage society to value mental and neurological wellbeing. www.londonbrainproject.com
SAT ONLY
Tell us a Joke! - 12-6pm
Reading Jokes! - 6-8pm
Like most Vital Arts projects, Peter Liversidge’s commission was born of a long engagement with the Royal London Hospital. Over the course of six weeks in 2012, he sifted through the hospital’s extensive archives, and wandered the dark corridors of the de-commissioned buildings, collecting abandoned materials–a book, carefully removed paint flakes, a box of keys, leaflet racks. Then, as is typical of Liversidge’s practice, he typed up a series of site-specific proposals, one of which is to publish a book of jokes to be circulated to patients.
Since 2013, Vital Arts have been collecting jokes from patients and staff at the Royal London to be included in the hospital Joke Book. Some of these jokes, as well as new ones collected from the public on Saturday 4th and Sunday 5th March 2017 and will be read out to the public by a professional comedian.
Vital Arts - 12-6pm
On display is information about the range of site-responsive art projects commissioned by Vital Arts, who deliver visual art, music, dance, literature and performance directly to patients at the five hospitals within Barts Health NHS Trust: Barts (St. Bartholomew’s); Royal London Hospital, Whitechapel; Mile End Hospital; Whipps Cross; Newham University Hospital.
