Monday, 2 October 2023

#194: Support (An Exhibition of Prescribed Experiences to Help Visitors Understand How They Feel)

A leaflet and poster campaign is launched throughout the country.  Both include the following quote:

Whatever you might be feeling, make a bookshelf of the writers who speak to you most, compile your favourite poems, go to your local gallery to experience art in the flesh or curate your own mini exhibition that will help you get through. Look to art for the answers because across the years, decades, or centuries, in work by someone who lived a completely different existence to you, you’ll find something you instantly recognise. And when you do, you can pass it on to someone else who might need it too.” - Katy Hessel.

as well as details of how to recommend art, literature, music, film, tv, or anything that might help aid people’s passages through different feelings and experiences.


Following on from this is an exhibition of the recommended (or prescribed) “medications” is staged.

At the centre is a sculpture called Support.  It features people crouched down in a circle supporting and raising up someone who is lying on a circular platform curled into a ball.

The exhibition shop only stocks leaflets and books aimed at supporting and helping attendees with their problems.

Monday, 25 September 2023

#193: Worry and After Worry

A full-size model of a tree.  

One side features entirely bare branches that have mould along them, which also runs down the trunk of the tree.  Blackbirds perch on the branches and nests sit empty.  

The opposite side is clear of the mould, and has branches bearing leaves and fruit (watermelons, bananas, artichokes and apples).  Within the leaves perch robins, crows and hummingbirds, many of whom occupy nests alongside partners and chicks; and many different flowers bloom: Christmas Rose, Lenten Rose, Red Columbine, and Stitchwort can all be seen.

Wherever the work is shown, the gallery must sell and have on offer a range of books, films and leaflets about anxiety and worry - for all ages and backgrounds.

Monday, 18 September 2023

#192: Empty and Solid

A hollow model of an apple seed made from stone and large enough to fit between someone's lungs. 

Monday, 11 September 2023

#191: Debt

Oil on canvas.  The scene shows a cross section of sky, ground and the soil beneath it.  Buried under the ground is a coffin containing a person who is awake and worried, dressed in a straitjacket. On the surface people are enjoying their lives.

Monday, 4 September 2023

#190: Shame

Oil on canvas.

Someone hiding inside a house, shrouded in darkness.  Through the window, a busy street scene is visible.

Or, Someone hiding in darkness while the world carries on outside.