I’ve been thinking about what I would ultimately like to achieve through this blog and the project that it documents. I think that the arts/technology/mental health is a fascinating topic that I would like to develop through further study and in my professional life as a producer and curator. This is certainly a topic which I can be passionate about and I have already proposed to contribute some programing on dance and mental health to the Bluecoat later this year, which I am excited about….
More importantly, I think I’d like to open up an opportunity for artists and audiences to talk about mental health and all of the colour and darkness that a bout of mania or a slow slide into depressive disorder can cause. This is still absolutely a taboo issue and I know this because I’ve been terrified to tell any of my professional (and even personal) contacts about my own experiences. I wont subvert the taboo with one show, but I might start a discussion that will help make a slight shift.
I read Darkness Visible by William Styron over the weekend. Styron was the author of highly acclaimed books such as Sophie’s Choice and fell into a bout of serious depression in his early sixties. He’s pretty convinced of the link between artists and depressive illness, identifying long lists of his fellow writers (Albert Camus and Anne Sexton among them) who have been affected. I am still looking for scientific evidence of this link as most of my reading so far has been anecdotal, but Stryron’s a powerful author and this book made compelling reading. The most entertaining part (of what is an otherwise a very dark text) was his story of being so exhausted and haphazard on the night when he won The Prix Mondial Cino del Duca in Paris, that he lost the cheque for his prize money worth £25,000!
