A release of the Performance Cataloguge by MOCA London gallery is now available and includes an excerpt about the Bareback Museum Life Drawing Performance.
performances_catalogue_2018_ebook
Miles Coote and Angela Hodgson-Teall
Bareback Museum in association with Wanda Klenz Productions:
Life Drawing Performance Workshop on Intimacy, Sexual Health and ‘Acts of Mercy’
October 20th & 21st 2018 at MOCA London
Saturday & Sunday
Exhibition 1 – 6 pm
Performances 2 – 4 pm
MOCA London invites you to take part in a life drawing and performance workshop and an exhibition by the Bareback Museum exploring intimacy, sexual health and the management of change for LGBTQ communities and institutions dealing with sexual health decisions about unprotected sex.
Miles Coote and Dr Angela Hodgson-Teall will present part one and part two of a three part work in progress, developing their ideas of a Bareback Museum and communities of health. An exhibition of their artworks and new artworks created by the audience will be displayed for the duration of the weekend.
Saturday 20 October 2 – 4pm
MOCA London
Part 1: Bareback Museum: Life Drawing Performance Workshop ‘Can I make a Painting if I am too ill Mrs Aids>?’
The Bareback Museum is an informative life drawing performance workshop which explores the roles of exhibitionism, sexual health and intimacy. An agency is created about unprotected sex using queer methodologies, live art performance and the notion of a life drawing class. It subverts cleansed and sanitised spaces and creates transparency to discuss ‘Bareback’ sex (men who have unprotected sex with men) in institutions where there is taboo and stigmatisation. Conversations such as unprotected sex, use of grindr, PEP/ PrEP, the changing perspectives about unprotected sex from Bareback communities and groups with their own philosophies of change are all supported through the process of life drawing and live art performance in a museological environment.
During the workshop, artist Angela Hodgson-Teall will ‘draw on the nature of empathy’ in times of crisis (the subject of her PhD, completed in 2014) and will perform with live artist and model, Miles Coote, who will recite the performance text ‘Can I make a Painting if I am too ill Mrs Aids’. Audiences will be invited to join in and draw, with materials provided. A discussion about temporality and the future of AIDS Memorials will be facilitated after the performance with the display of drawings created by the audience.
We would like to take the opportunity to thank Juliet Scott for the introduction of a ‘reflective layer’ (Tavistock Institute of Human Relations), weaving together the audiences’ collective thoughts and emotions and learning from the performance. Juliet led ‘Social Dreaming the Tavistock Institute of Human Relations’ Archive’ events at the Wellcome Library Reading Room and has considered relevant projects from the Institute’s archive in the support and empowerment of participants with HIV and AIDS; the online research and self-help exchange (SEAHORSE, 1996) and the ‘London Lighthouse’ report.
Sunday 21 October 2 – 4 pm
Part 2: Bareback Museum: Life Drawing Performance Workshop Acts of Mercy
Artist and post-doctoral researcher Angela Hodgson-Teall will offer a life drawing workshop and
performance based on her response to the four Frederick Cayley Robinson Acts of Mercy murals (1915 – 1920) from the Middlesex Hospital, where Elizabeth Garrett Anderson, the first woman doctor in Britain studied, before being petitioned to leave by the male medical students. Angela was a medical student and junior doctor at the Middlesex She was also there when the country’s first AIDS ward was set up. The paintings influenced her deeply and were cherished by staff.
Using lines of her poems and poses from the paintings, Angela will examine what it means
to make actions within the world of health, tracing acts of mercy, pity and empathy from the scenes of orphans, animals, children, wounded soldiers and hospital staff of the first World War.
The paintings can be viewed at the Wellcome Collection library, 183
Euston Road, London, NW1 2BE