Sick! Festival

SICK! Festival is the antidote to the physical, mental and social challenges of life. At the forefront of the arts and health agenda, the festival brings together an outstanding international arts programme with perspectives from academic research, clinical practitioners, public health professionals, charities and most importantly, those with lived experience of the issues we address. Taking the conversation into the heart of the communities where the subjects matter most, SICK! Festival creates a shared space for experiences, reflection and connection. In 2015, SICK! Festival won the prestigious EFFE Festivals Award, a prestigious accolade rewarding the 12 most outstanding European festivals from a pool of 760. The award reflects the organisation’s quality, innovation and international reputation as a leader in the arts, health and well-being.

SICK!’s recent festival was a 4-day programme at Manchester’s Contact Theatre, March 9-12, 2016: SICK! Lab explored the most challenging experiences that we live through and die from. From the difficulties of our daily lives to the experience of global traumas of conflict and displacement, how do our personal battles write themselves across our minds and bodies?

SICK! Lab incorporated performances, works-in-progress, presentations and discussions bringing together artists, clinicians, commentators, academics from a wide range of disciplines and the public to explore questions connecting identity and trauma: Why do we find it so hard to be alone in our minds? What do we gain from and lose to our social groups? Who do we chose to be the objects of our compassion? How much are we still defined by all those traditional categories: Religion, ethnicity, nationality, gender, sexuality, disability?

With sell out audiences for headline performances and many vibrant, challenging and thought-provoking discussions, SICK! Lab offered a taster of some of the subjects that will be explored in depth in the programme of SICK! Festival 2017 and tested out some new formats for generating conversation and reflection on these themes. Speakers, artists and contributors included Lemn Sissay MBE, Prof. Anthony Redmond OBE, Kim Noble, Bryony Kimmings, Hetain Patel, Prof. James Thompson, Quarantine, Prof. Bobbie Farsides, Prof. Jackie Stacy, Prof. Michael Brady, Dr. Jonathan Mair, Prof. Alex Sharpe and Disability Arts Online.

See the full SICK! Lab programme here

Categories: Report


Date Posted: 17 April 2016