Join us at London’s Southbank Centre for our in-person September artist peer group.
These events are an opportunity to hear from two artists about their practice and meet other artists working in the arts & health sector. Our peer groups provide the space for artists to share active ideas, projects and challenges, with peer support from audience participants. Each artist has approximately 45mins to share works and receive feedback and support from you — alongside designated unstructured time to meet others from a variety of backgrounds and disciplines.
This event is facilitated by artist Paloma Tendero.
Our artists this month are transdisciplinary artist, composer and vocal improviser Jaka Škapin, and artist and curator Shirin Fathi. Want to share your work at a future group? Fill out our application form.
The Southbank Centre is an accessible venue. If you have any questions please contact us at info@artsandhealthhub.org.
Image credit: (C) Luminelle, Photography by Sara Hibbert, Movement direction by Danielle Jones. Follow the Light... series concept and direction by Danielle Jones and Sara Hibbert
About Jaka Škapin
Jaka Škapin is a London based transdisciplinary artist, composer and vocal improviser. He is the musical director of Collective IDentity, a community inquiry centred around co-creation with dancers with Parkinson’s. As part of Sound&Music’s New Voices programme, he is currently completing a solo theatre performance featuring live vocal looping, projections, movement and words with the support of PRS Foundation’s Open Fund.
“I don’t know a better way of authentically connecting, as well as questioning and creating new ways of being, than through the channels of body and voice. Through the practice of collaborative improvisation, we’ll engage with language and movement as catalysts of change, all while being supported by a vocal score created on the spot with the use of live looping.”
About Shirin Fathi
Shirin is an Iranian Canadian artist and curator. Her practice focuses on cultural changes in relation to gender identity. Through role-play and the use of masks and prosthetics, Shirin uses her body as a subject to stage ambiguous and often marginalized identities. Building upon her recent project focusing on gender representation in the history of cultural exchange between Europe and Iran in 19th century Qajar paintings, Shirin’s practice examines gender representation in relation to the beauty ideals imposed on Iranian women through cosmetic surgery.
“This project started with investigative work where I impersonated a patient and made multiple visits to beauty clinics in Tehran. I made detailed reports of my observations as a patient. I used my phone to record the conversations that I had with doctors. These conversations eventually led me to 16th century medical drawings to understand the process of sculpting and altering facial features while imagining the role of the plastic surgeon as an artist.
Through role play and the use of cosmetics and silicone masks made from adjusted casts of my own face, I went through multiple transformations to give a first-person’s account of how it feels to change.
Having a discussion about the practice of cosmetic surgery and sharing personal stories around our ideas of body image, ideals of beauty and anxiety will help me in the process of developing this project further.”
Cost.
Pay What You Can (suggested donation: £5) / Free