Mental. Truth is Concrete. Dam maD and other news.

the vacuum cleaner. News.

Hello, here’s a little more about our recent projects.

Mental: Work in Progress.

Supported by the Oxford Samuel Beckett Theatre Trust and Barbican. 11 to 13 October, London.

The Metropolitan Police call him a domestic extremist. The NHS has labelled him as schizophrenic. “A real and present threat to the safe running of our lawful business” is how E.ON described him at the Royal Courts of Justice.

He prefers the term mental.

After ten years of being an outlaw and inpatient, artist activist the vacuum cleaner presents an autobiographical performance told through his psychiatric records, police intelligence files and corporate injunctions, collected through the Data Protection and Freedom of Information Acts.

Directed by Tania El Khoury and designed by Sophie Nathan.

Mental | Mental Blog | Tickets

Truth is Concrete.

the vacuum cleaner will be presenting two works at Truth is Concrete, a 24/7 marathon camp on artistic strategies in politics and political strategies in art. 21 to 28 September 2012, Graz.

Ship of Fools: Tactics Talk.

In 2010, the vacuum cleaner was threatened with being detailed under the UK Mental Health Act for six months, which would have resulted in him being treated at a locked acute psychiatric ward. But this wasn’t the outcome. Instead, the vacuum cleaner sectioned himself, in his own self made hospital within his own home for 28 days. This self-initiated residency, “Ship of Fools”, resulted in him working with artists and non-artists to explore the creativity and stigma surrounding mental illness.

Mental: Work in Progress.

the vacuum cleaner will be presenting Mental as a work in progress.

Truth is Concrete

Dam maD.

Instructions for the Neuro-Normal, as part of Paper Stages. Forest Fringe, Edinburgh. August 2012.

An instructional intervention to challenge mental health discrimination through telling jokes about mental illness.

Dam maD | Paper Stages at Forest Fringe

Anti-Capitalism and Mental Health.

Cover images for the magazine for democratic psychiatry. Autumn 2012.

Documentary photographs of ‘Barking Mad’ and ‘Ship of Fools’ have been used as the cover images for Asylum’s Anti-Capitalism and Mental Health edition with four other works featured inside the magazine.

Asylum Collective | Image of the cover

Hannah Hull gets sucked into the vacuum cleaner

We’re pleased to welcome Hannah Hull as our new creative producer, she can be contacted on hannah@thevacuumcleaner.co.uk and you can see her own work via her website – www.hannahhull.co.uk. Phoebe Davis has moved onto work with vulnerable people through the South London Gallery, at which she will be amazing. You can contact her at phoebe.davies@southlondongallery.org