5 March 2015 - 17 May 2015
Originating from FACT’s extensive work within mental health and wellbeing, the exhibition explores the complex relationship between technology, society, and mental health.
Group Therapy presents a diverse collection of artworks, research and design innovation exploring connections between mental health and the values, political conditions, and technologies that that structure our lives. It frames mental health not as problem that affects a small cohort of people living on the fringes of society, but as a social issue that plays a part in all of our lives. To emphasise this, the exhibition and many of the works within it are designed to prompt visitors to reflect on their own mental state, by creating experiences that bring awareness to the body and mind.
the vacuum cleaner (UK), Madlove
Inspired by his own encounters with psychiatric hospitals, which he experienced as punishing rather than loving environments, the vacuum cleaner hopes that ideas from this project can eventually influence mainstream mental health care, offering individuals 'a safe place to go mad'.
“There’s a reason why we’re doing this as an art project. The brilliant thing about the art world is it gives you space to try things. And space to fail. You can try things and aim for it to be utopian. And Madlove is a utopian idea – it’s willfully optimistic!” - the vacuum cleaner in The Liverpool Echo