Thursday 13 October 2016
6:30 – 10:30 pm
William Morris Gallery, E17 4PP For one night only we will be taking over the William Morris Gallery for an evening of fun and frolics! This event will be a combination of performance, music, poetry and participation that sees Bobby Baker and fellow artists undertake an epic quest to diagnose the east London gallery.  ROVING DIAGNOSTIC UNIT™  aims to widen cultural participation whilst inspiring conversations about mental health. On the night: Artists Marie Louise Plum, Sara Haq and Kate Rolison will lead Diagnostic Expeditionary Tours of the gallery, using routine psychiatric methods to ask questions.
Marie Louise Plum  is a multidisciplinary artist. She draws, paint, collage and collect, sculpt, make objects, installations, and present engaging art performances. Marie is the founder of arts organisation, Mental Spaghetti, supporting and developing art from the margins, working with individuals at risk of social exclusion. Sara Haq  is an artist, photographer and creative workshop facilitator, based in London, UK. Her work always reflective of personal experience and often explores intercultural relationships and the interactions between art and social change.
Kate Rolison is also known by her internet alias Poesie Grenadine ; a broken French phrase which roughly translates as purple prose. A firm believer in Craftivism (the art of craft and activism), she explores mental health activism and feminism through workshops and in her own practice. In collaboration with interactive theatre-makers Coney will be the Emotion Police Emancipation Programme . Rhiannon Armstrong makes engaging artworks for and with those who do not necessarily think of themselves as art audiences, under the lifelong series title Instructions for Empathetic Living. Rhiannon is an associate artist of Coney, whose technology she is using for her work with the Roving Diagnostic Unit. Renowned poet sean burn plays with words and ideas around mental health, using language to open up the subject and challenge ownership of narratives. “hi, sean burn here.  i play with words, sometimes conventionally & sometimes un, believing we first owned our voices before they were mostly stolen, languages our first battlefield.   now i write / perform / make outsider art.  i have an international reputation, active involvement in disability arts nationally and am part of mad studies north-east.” Participate in a workshop where you make personalised ‘power pants’ to help you deal with the challenges of everyday life. Mistry’s  practice explores inventive approaches and methodologies in the making of performance, live works and social practices. Her movement practice is focused on making experimental enquiries about being in process with the body and unpredictable choreographies. Music comes from singer songwriter Dylan Tighe who, throughout the evening, performs segments from his first and second albums. Dublin singer/songwriter, performer and theatre-maker. Dylan, was described by the Irish Times as “framing reflective music with remarkable eloquence” His radio-drama for RTÉ ‘Wabi-Sabi Soul’, inspired by his own experience of psychiatric diagnosis, was nominated for the Prix Europa radio prize.

Artist and performer Selina Thompson brings her inimitable style to host the infamous Daily Life Ltd Cure All Karaoke. Selina Thompson  is an artist and performer based in Birmingham. Her work is playful, participatory and intimate, focused on the politics of identity, and how this defines our bodies, lives and environments.