Little Episodes launch in London tomorrow

Time: February 25, 2010 at 7pm to February 26, 2010 at 1am
Location: Contemporary Urban Centre, London, London Bridge, Bankside
Street: 73-81 Southwark Bridge Road
City/Town: London
Website or Map: http://www.novasscarman.org/c…
Event Type: launch, party, launch party
Organized By: Little Episodes
Free; donations welcome
Facebook event

Little Episodes is an international collaborative art project aiming to destigmatise and raise awareness of depression, addiction and mental illness. It also promotes the arts as a therapeutic tool by holding writing and art therapy workshops, and provides a platform for both emerging and established writers/artists to find community and collaboration. A series of publications is due to come out, and the first, "Back In Five Minutes" is launching tomorrow.


One of my texts is featured in the anthology, and it would be massively awesome if whoever reads this could and would come along!

 

 

The event will feature musical performances, an art exhibition, and will showcase material from the 'expression of depression' anthology series. Featuring acoustic and plugged sets from:

Mark Underwood
Alice Temple
Lisa Moorish
Joe Fox
Straitjacket Coat Check
The Harrison Brothers
The Usual Players

Little Episodes is also an online network/multimedia portal offering space to post texts, artwork, music and video; to blog, comment and discuss; to socialize and empathize.

Lucie Barât, the founder and artistic director of Little Episodes, is an extraordinary woman: actress, songwriter, musician, poet. She started a theatre company, a band, and published a volume of poetry on being a lesbian housewife. She also spent time in therapy and rehab. This is what she says in the mission statement for Little Episodes:


I would consider myself to have been lost. Perhaps I provoked myself with persistent existential angst, or perhaps I just struggled with life and finding my place in the world.

I have spent time on psychologists’ couches and I have resided in various institutions, and in the end, I believe I became ‘found’. On my journey, I read empathetic accounts of other people’s experiences.
It helped to lift the ‘bell jar’ a little when I felt imprisoned in the battleground of my mind and when I felt most alone on the edges of society.

I wanted to create something that might provide light and understanding to other sufferers of depression, mental illness, or people just struggling. I also wanted to provide a platform for
talented artists who have never had a ‘break’, as it’s well known that most artistic industries can be harsh on even the most happy of personalities. Plenty of talented people fall by the wayside simply
because they don’t have the fight or the thick skin to keep playing the artistic lottery for a chance at success. The Little Episodes books have contributions from successful as well as unknown talent.
Most of all, I wanted to help de-stigmatise depression and promote compassion and understanding rather than fear and embarrassment. I also wanted to dispel the notion that depression is in any way cool. I wanted to express the belief that romantic dead poets and the image of sultry, tragic heroines are just a dangerous mirage. If you flirt with a glamorised dark side, you could fall through, and contrary to popular belief; you will not discover a font of creative inspiration, but quite the opposite; a dull, flat hell land.

When Lucie first asked for submissions for the project, then just one anthology of texts and artwork, on the Fay Wrays' MySpace, I hesitated. I was a mess, surely not a writer. It would sometimes magically work to transform my suffocating experience into words, but I had no faith in myself at all. After Lucie wrote to me, saying she'd accepted my submissions, it was the first time I really thought that what I had to say mattered, and I could actually do it. If it wasn't for Lucie, I would probably never have the guts to believe in my writing as something important, both for me and for a larger community.

Read more about Lucie and the other founders of Little Episodes, men and women, here. + come tomorrow!