Mad Hearts Online Day Programme

Today Saturday 10 June is our online day around the theme of Queering Boundaries. We have keynotes from artist Rachel Mars, Queercircle and panels on Neuroqueerness, Social Prescribing and Gender.

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Feel free to join any time throughout the day.

Full programme

09.15-09:30 Introduction and Welcome

9.30-10.20

Artist’s Keynote: Rachel Mars (Live captioning)

But how am I supposed to feel? Ambivalence, humour and the opportunity of the grey zone in making performance (Live captioning)

10:25-10:40

Introductions in Small groups - grab a cup of coffee

1045-1200

Panel A

Neuroqueering: reframings & repositionings… changing seasons, grounding seas - with Jané Mackenzie and Sonny Hallett - chaired by Sumita Majumdar (Sumita Unjumbled) - (Live captioning)

Sumita (autistic arts-expresser) invites a conversation-space with Jané Mackenzie (collaborative participatory artist and community organiser) & Sonny Hallett (autistic therapist and trainer). this panel is an unfixed destination, which may include sharings and conversational wanderings of neuroqueering experiences, reframings, reclaimings and repositionings, stories of community collaborations, neurodivergent/normodivergent kinships and resonances, navigations, space-creations, queer ecology and nature-norms, understandings and identifications, plants and emotions, leaving seasons, language, land and sea.

Panel B

Queering Boundaries, Genders and Mental Health with Dr. Ben Walters (aka Dr. Duckie) and Dr. Hannah Silva  - chaired by Pedro Rothstein (Live captioning)

A thrilling and thought-provoking conversation between activist and researcher Dr. Ben Walters (aka Dr. Duckie) and writer, performer and researcher Dr. Hannah Silva where they will explore themes like arts and crafts' utopian spaces, homelessness and neurodiversity, queer parenting, love and algorithms and 'homemade mutant hope machines'.

12.00-12.40  Discussion 

12:40-13:30 Lunch break

13:30-14:25

Keynote: Dr Frances Williams and Yasmin Jiang from Queercircle (Live captioning)

Dr Frances Williams and Yasmin Jiang present two publications commissioned and published by QUEERCIRCLE - a new arts and culture organisation based in London. One is a zine, created by MJ Barker, the other an evaluation report produced by researchers at The University College London.

Both publications seek to queer - and query - some of the concepts around what 'creative health' can and should be... What benefits can such an approach bring to this field of knowledge by way of blurring boundaries across form and method, academic and community knowledge? 

14:30-15:30 

Panel discussion on Arts Based Social Prescribing with: Vivian Vigliotti,  Francesca Cornaglia, Maria G. Turri  and Mona Wang (Live captioning)

We will discuss the preliminary findings of our project “Arts based social-prescribing is East London”, with a focus on the challenges that arts organisations working in community settings face and a vision for future pathways of collaboration between arts and health.

15.30-15.45  Break 

15:45-16:30

All group discussion and close  

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