DIY: 2012 – Oriana Fox:  Live Art Therapy

Oriana Fox

Live Art Therapy

Cumbria and Manchester

DIY 9: 2012 – Call for Participants

This Workshop Will Change Your Life For The Better!

Project summary:
We’ve all got problems, whether they’re emotional, practical or philosophical, and we look to friends, family and occasionally trained professionals for solutions; sometimes we read books or watch TV trying to find answers. My question is, why not consult performance artists? Or, alternatively, why not examine and develop the therapeutic aspects of our own work? Live Art and its history could be considered a veritable treasure-trove of practical advice and tips! This workshop will entail looking to performance for solutions to our woes and to develop methods for how to become happier, healthier, more actualised and self-aware versions of ourselves, or perhaps to question, play with and subvert these goals altogether. It may also be apt to re-evaluate the worth of ‘self-help’ as the motivation for art, since it is nearly always seen as narcissistic, apolitical or just plain ‘naff’. Lastly, if performance art fails to ‘cure’, we can always fall back on the advice of a licensed psychotherapist with over 25 years of experience: Angela Monti Fox L.C.S.W. (Oriana’s mom) will do one-to-one consultations with each participant.

There may be an opportunity to perform the pieces developed from it at the Abandon Normal Devices (AND) Festival in Manchester (29 August – 2 September, 2012).

Dates, times and location:
28 and 29 July.

Grizedale Forest, Cumbria – http://visitlakelandforests.co.uk/index.php/your-forests/grizedale/overview Transportation by car from Manchester with pick ups in Preston, Lancaster & Grange-Over-Sands and accommodation for Saturday evening will be provided.

Application procedure:
To apply, please send your CV, three examples of your work (preferably web-links, or emailed video or image files with brief explanatory texts) and the answers to the following three questions on one A4 sheet:

1) Why are you interested in taking part in this workshop?
2) Is there a specific issue that you are hoping to (begin to) tackle in the workshop and if so, what is it?
3) Do you consider your own art practice (or aspects of it) to be therapeutic and if so, how?

Participants will ideally have at least 2 years of experience as professional performers/live artists, but we will also consider applications from recent graduates who have MA/MFAs in Fine Art, Performance or a related subject and have focused on performance-making during their degrees. It’s desirable that participants have a demonstrable interest in therapy, psychoanalysis or self-help, or have done projects or led/participated in workshops that relate to art therapy or mental health issues. There may be a fee for participation which will be kept to a minimum. Food won’t be provided.

Email applications to [email protected] (cc’d to [email protected]) with the subject heading ‘AND DIY9’.

Closing date for applications is Monday 9 July, 2012.

The artist:
Oriana Fox is a multi-disciplinary artist who works primarily in video and performance to explore autobiography, self-help, feminism and desire. Steeped in the iconography of representations of women and counter self-representations by 1970s feminist artists, Fox chooses to step inside the media clichés and make them her own using a mixture of sincerity and parody, rather than turning to rejection or distance as a critical tool. Currently, she is pursuing an MPhil/PhD in the Visual Cultures department at Goldsmiths investigating self-disclosure and its therapeutic potential, looking to pop culture, psychology and the performance art for ideals and norms to aspire to and/or defy. www.orianafox.com

Contact information:
Please email in the first instance: [email protected]

This DIY project is supported by Abandon Normal Devices (AND).

This project was a response to the DIY 9 Call for Proposals