Anti-Psychiatry and Its Legacies, Nottingham Contemporary
Tue 12 and Wed 13 February
Free
The Space
Piero Gilardi’s work with marginalised communities, including those confined to mental hospitals, was influenced by Italian psychiatrist Franco Basaglia (1924-80). Alongside Michel Foucault, R.D. Laing, Felix Guattari and Thomas Szasz, Basaglia contributed to the diverse foundations of the radical anti-psychiatry movement; he argued that all asylums should be replaced by open therapeutic communities, a controversial position which provoked both mental health reform and inspired socially-activist approaches to artistic practice.
Over two evenings, a programme of screenings and discussions focuses on different national contexts involved in the development of Anti-Psychiatry and questions its status as an interdisciplinary critical legacy bridging philosophy with creative and clinical practice. This is then followed by an informal talk by artist and activist the vacuum cleaner.
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Tuesday 12 February, 6 – 9pm
Free
The Space
6pm Dora Garcia The Deviant Majority, From Basaglia to Brazil (2010, 34’)
Garcia’s film forms part of her ongoing investigation of the political potential of marginal positions. It is structured around encounters with three organisations: Accademia della Follia (Academy of Madness), the Trieste Psychiatric Hospital’s theatre company; Carmen Roll, a former member of the German Socialist Patients’ Collective; and the Freaked on the Scene Theatre of the Oppressed, Rio de Janeiro.
7pm Panel Discussion
Panel discussion, with contributions from John Foot, Professor of Modern Italian History, UCL. Foot is currently leading a project focused on Basaglia and the closure of mental asylums in Italy. David Reggio, Kingston University/Universidade Comunitária da Região de Chapecó. Reggio has worked within institutional psychiatry at the renowned La Borde clinic and with the anti-psychiatry movement in Brazil. Howard Caygill, Professor Of Modern European Philosophy, Kingston University. Caygill’s research interests include philosophy and psychiatry as well as contemporary European philosophy, ethics and theories of resistance.
Wednesday 13 February, 6 – 9pm
Free
The Space
6pm Screening: Luke Fowler, Bogman Palmjaguar (2007, 30’)
The subject of Fowler’s film is a trained conservationist and certified paranoid schizophrenic who is fighting a legal battle against this diagnosis. Featuring discussions with psychiatrist Leon Redler (a former colleague of R.D. Laing), this is a film about the injustices of contemporary psychiatric practice and also a portrait of the Flow Country, a remote area of rare blanket bog and wetland in Northern Scotland.
7pm Panel discussion
With contributions from Duncan Double, Consultant psychiatrist Norfolk & Suffolk NHS Foundation Trust and founding member of The UK Critical Psychiatry Network, a platform for debate, discussion, lobbying and publication to critique the contemporary psychiatric system. Alastair Morgan is Senior Lecturer in Mental Health, Sheffield Hallam University. Morgan’s perspective encompasses critical theory and clinical practice, having worked as a qualified nurse in community adult mental health with marginalized and excluded groups. Angela Woods, Durham University. Woods is an inter-disciplinary medical humanities researcher and author of The Sublime Object of Psychiatry: Schizophrenia in Clinical and Cultural Theory.