In collaboration with Dr Carmine Pariante (Professor of Biological Psychiatry and Head of the Stress, Psychiatry and Immunology Lab & Perinatal Psychiatry at the Institute of Psychiatry, Psychology and Neuroscience) at King’s College London, we will present a durational interactive performance entitled For of all sad words of tongue and pen, the saddest are these, "it might have been". Curated by Science Gallery London for BLOOD: Life Uncut.
Saturday 28th + Sunday 29th Oct: 1–6pm
Copeland Gallery @ 133 Copeland Road, London SE15 3SN
This is a one-to-one performance in which blood is metaphorically exchanged, alongside a sound installation with accumulating wall text. It is organised by Stress, Psychiatry and Immunology Lab - SPI Lab together with Science Gallery London and artist Lynn Charlotte Lu for the Becoming Blood Weekender.
Visitors will be asked to share a personal regret – a recurring theme plaguing depressed patients – which Lynn will transcribe on parchment. She then invites participants to prick their own finger and place a drop of blood in a petri dish. In exchange, Lynn offers them a shot of anti-inflammatory beet juice. As petri dishes accumulate, filling with blood “inflamed” with lament, vials of detoxifying beetroot empty one by one. Nearby, small speakers murmur layered verses of ‘what might have been’, with text contributions from poet Francis Byrne. This wall gradually fills with sheets of anonymous regrets collected from the performance participants.