Screening of a video project by artist Richard Squires.
Programme is the culmination of a project based around the Salptrire Hospital in Paris, initiated by artist Richard Squires in 2003: a hybrid video work that interweaves drama, documentary and sporadic attempts at hypnotic communication.
At the end of the nineteenth century the Salptrire was the stage for Dr Charcot's leons du mardi - highly theatrical presentations of Salptrian hysteria that featured 'star patients' such as Blanche Wittman. Programme examines aspects of the neurologist's practice that imply manipulation, collusion or simulation and revisits the Salptrire's history as an establishment of social control during the ancien rgime. Interviews with historians, dramatic reconstructions, cataleptic performances and a syphilitic narrator come together to fashion a hysterical narrative that eventually unravels to expose its own construction.
A limited edition programme with a specially commissioned text by Ian White will accompany the events.
Old Operating Theatre, Museum and Herb Garret
9a St Thomas Street, SE1 9RY
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