Performance. 2013 – 2019
The Metropolitan Police call him a Domestic Extremist. The NHS have described him as ‘highly disturbed’ and labelled him with Borderline Personality Disorder. ‘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 14 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 Act.
“This essential show is a fascinating, stigma-smashing experience” The Scotsman
“There are plenty of shows on the fringe drawing on autobiography, but probably few that are as raw and open as Mental” The Guardian
Created by – the vacuum cleaner
Outside Eye – Kim Noble
Development – Tania El Koury
Design – Sophie Nathan
Produced – Gill Lloyd, Hannah Hull, Amy Hicks.
Supported by Arts Council of England, Artsadmin and In Between Time.
Venues
- Festival of Rest and Resistance. Battersea Arts Centre. London, 2019.
- Barbican/Artist’s Bedroom, London, UK
- Inbetween Time, Bristol, UK
- Sick Festival, Brighton, UK
- Homo Novus, Riga, Latvia
- Artist’s Bedroom, London, UK
- Word of Warning, Manchester, UK
- Tramway, Glasgow, UK
- St Helen Central Library, UK
- Mayfest, Bristol, UK
- Edinburgh Festival Fringe, UK
- Sudpol, Lucerne, Switzerland
- Gessnerallee, Zurich, Switzerland
- Dokumentartage, Basel, Switzerland
- Colchester Arts Centre, UK
- Contact Theatre, Manchester, UK
- Les Urbaines, Lausanne, Switzerland
- L’Usine, Geneva, Switzerland
- Spiel Art, Munich, Germany
- No Limits Festival, Berlin, Germany
- Tromso, Norway
- Teatro Maria Matos, Lisbon, Portugal
- Freud Museum, London, UK (Freud’s Bedroom).
- Vooruit, Ghent, Belguim
- Frascati, Amsterdam, Netherlands
- Kaai Theatre Brussels, Belguim
- Grenzenlos Kultur, Mainz, Germany
- Schwankhalle, Breman, Germany