DIY: 2017 – Giovanna Maria Casetta with Helena Waters: Help The Aged

A traditional seaside weekender: fish and chips, bingo, promenading on the pier, discussing and rewriting the rules for (us) ageing artists with a punk/anarchic ethos

APPLICATIONS ARE NOW CLOSED.

Project summary

Inspired by Pulp’s bleak landscape of old age, I am inviting you to come on a journey and explore the issues that are facing the older generation, who are condemned to a life of loneliness, poverty, labeled useless, rendered invisible and placed on the margins of society, all for being the wrong side of fifty. Why should this happen to us? It is important to focus on creating a positive discourse, writing our own rules and creating an infrastructure to meet our expectations of how to negotiate the territory of ageing.

How to apply

This DIY is aimed at artists who are over fifty or those who identify as older. They may have radical practices and they have been questioned about the appropriateness of continuing to work in this way as they get older. Participants can be at various levels of experience, the novice to the expert – the common denominator being artists that have felt marginalised because of ageing and those that fear this will happen to them.

Via the link below, applicants are required to send a short statement of 200 words stating why they want to take part in “Help the Aged” which demonstrates: experience of feeling marginalised and invisible within society or a fear of encountering this due to ageing, an open mind and a hunger to changing age related invisibility and negativity, a thirst for exploration and discussion of ideas, how the experience will benefit your practice. Please also include a link to your website or recent work, and a brief biography.

This DIY has a limited capacity of 10 participants.

APPLICATIONS ARE NOW CLOSED.

Dates, times and location

Dates: 15-16 Oct 2017
Times: Both days begin at 10am
Location: Lancaster and Morecambe

The artist

Giovanna Maria Casetta has twenty years experience of working in performance, 8mm film and installation. A constant theme running through her practice is the tension between the surface and what lies beneath. The fragility of the physical and psychological self and how our identity is compromised through societies unrealistic expectations of what we should be. Currently I am developing “Mayhem, Madness and the Menopause” which explores issues surrounding menopause and mental health. This work emerged from the LADA week with Rocio Bolivar ‘between menopause and old age’. Currently Giovanna is facilitating a discussion group for older artists with Robert Pacitti as part of the Pacitti Company Think Tank Programme 2017.

If you have questions about this project, please contact Giovanna. 

This DIY is supported by Lancaster Arts.