In the past when a person was diagnosed with a mental illness they may have been admitted to a mental institution (formerly known as the lunatic asylum). Nowadays there is a move towards closing down mental institutions and creating ‘community care’. In many European countries old asylums are being demolished, left derelict or transformed into spaces for new public use.
This multi-disciplinary arts project invites artists to respond to this vanishing past and to explore artistically new developments in relation to the contemporary mental health landscape. The project brings together artists and all those interested in mental health and illness to come together to explore the intersection between the arts, performance, mental ill health, psychiatry and positive mental health. Artists will come together to create an annual multi-disciplinary European arts festival and are invited to respond to themes of ‘madness’, ‘mental illness’ and ‘positive mental health’.

Aims:
• To bring together European artists from different arts disciplines with a view to stimulating new creative processes and creating new works in response to themes of performance, madness, asylum, mental illness and positive mental health.
• To showcase the new works as part of an annual multi-disciplinary European arts festival celebrating the past history of mental health care and future approaches to promoting positive mental health
• To create new encounters and exchanges for artists, mental health practitioners, scientists, social innovators and mental health service users resulting in the production of new art works within a culturally diverse context. New work includes a movement/dance based theatrical co-production; performance based ‘happenings’, visual art and dance installations.
• Project outcomes include an ‘ezine’; ‘video interviews’ and ‘podcasts’
• To promote audience understanding of the interconnection between the arts and mental health and to raise awareness of new approaches to promoting positive mental health and supporting mental illness

For European Partners:
Provide 3 artists interested in (a) creating new collaborative creations with other European artists and to take part in mobility exchanges and (b) to create their own individual pieces that can travel and / or be viewed online. Identify the site of a former or current mental health institution (if available) to feature in the work.

Additional Information:
In relation to a European project, we are aiming to link up with artists, scientists, mental health practitioners, social innovators and the general public in other European countries where each country researches and develops a body of new artistic work and where artists travel to work in other European countries in order to create new work relating to three overall areas:
The history of psychiatric care in each country, and stories of people who have lived in, been incarcerated in or work in a psychiatric institution
Lived experiences of ‘madness’ and the fragility of mental health, asking ‘what is madness’ and exploring the body as a site of memory and madness
The Dreams and Hopes of people today living with mental health problems; to bring together artists, scientists, mental health practitioners, the general public to explore issues in relation to human mental health and mental illness.

The project aims to promote through artistic processes a better understanding of mental health and mental illness, of the role of psychiatry in treating mental illness and detention and to overcome social discrimination and misconceptions and stigma surrounding ‘madness’ and mental illness. The project is at the intersection between past and present, theatre, the arts and medicine, between the arts and psychiatry and between science and culture.

Contact details:
Freda Manweiler (e: freda@smashingtimes.ie)
Smashing Times Theatre Company
Coleraine House, Coleraine Street , Dublin 7
T: +35318656613, w: www.smashingtimes.ie