hello from sean burn – artist in residence

3.39am
so we’re in the (e/stranged) family house of a long-time friend and sowing seeds everywhere. handfuls and handfuls of wild flower seeds, sprinkling compost, watering ‘em in. we’re casting ‘em into rugs, under floorboards, inside piano even. then i realise its 3:39am, the west midlands, (a) new year and a new residency. my friend, they carry many the same labels as have been slapped on me, and somewhere in all this sarah kanes 4:48 psychosis nudges. I’m a wee bit early, or possibly very late, and for once no mare just strange strange casting of seeds into anothers house never home, and did they even piano?

hi, sean burn here. I’m the current artist in residence in the studio, here at the new gallery, walsall. been in residence, ooh, about a day now. I’ll be here on and off over the next year and mostly investigating creative responses to mental distress (mine and others). this residency is part of outside in – a major new initiative to increase opportunities for and the numbers of disabled and deaf artists working within mainstream galleries. this project was initiated by dash (disability arts shropshire) and two more residencies are also running – one with wolverhampton art gallery and another with oriel davies, newtown. so do look out for a whole raft of things happening across 2010/11.

so who am i? i try refusing categories, instead working across performance / installation / sound / film and spoken word to challenge the ownership of narratives. we are surrounded, often defined by languages of all kinds, yet use them to free ourselves. i believe languages (visual / sonic / textual / performative) should be owned by all and that bandwidth rather than hierarchy is a more appropriate contemporary model. my work which regularly challenges top-down narratives relating to psychiatry, a privileged form of storytelling, based on my own long-term history as a (frequently enforced) mental health service user – saw me short-listed for a dadafest 2009 disability arts award.

i am a writer, performer and outsider artist with a growing international reputation. i am also actively involved nationally in disability arts which saw me shortlisted for a dadafest award, autumn 2009 . my plays are performed by black swan productions; breaking binary; ctc; first draft; half moon; maverick; pegasus; paines plough; queens hall arts; under construction; weaver-hughes ensemble; zeitgeist. my fifteen poetry films have received many screenings worldwide, as well as at tate modern and national film theatre studios, london. exhibitions / installations / performances / commissions have been exhibited and toured with arcadea; cesta, czech republic; dada-south; the door (birmingham rep); fotofeis and grampian hospital arts trust; fold and fred; gulbenkian canterbury and lit up; humber mouth festival; interarte, germany; lancaster university and lancaster litfest; new word order; odins glow; ovada; shout festival. i have had three cd’s of work released, most recently speaksong (with gareth mitchell, musician). skrev press (www.skrevpress.com) have just launched a third full-length collection of my writing – wings are giving out – (isbn 978-1-904646-56-3).

theres a lot of my work out there – especially netwise. you might particularly like to check out

ayler. short film. 7 minutes. 2007. rev 2009. www.vimeo.com/7595713
albert ayler was at the forefront of free improvisation in the 1960s, his untimely death and his brothers incarceration in a psychiatric institution brought this fragile flowering to an abrupt end, though his recordings mean he is not silenced. this is contrasted with a nadir of that same culture – the u.s. funding of the contras and their attempted destruction of the nicaraguan peoples via an illegal and immoral war something that needs remembering in this 30th year of the sandinista revolution. ayler was premièred in munich and has since been shown in wolverhampton, naoussa, greece, gaza, palestine and leeds

stealing brecht. short film. 3 minutes 43 seconds. 2004
stealing brecht explores rituals of healing and asks how we can create moments of hope and compassion in the face of oppression. i remember first engaging with human rights when i was around 13. this was via a series of short films featuring specific cases of human rights abuses from across countries and cultures highlighted by amnesty international. what brought it home more was that due to chronic mental-ill health which first manifested itself around then i was taken to a psychiatric unit & detained there, building a bridge between my own oppression and others. the film was created thanks to a medialab pva residency and has received 25 screenings in 7 countries across europe. www.vimeo.com/7602418

spoken word
1. stealing brecht 3:33 www.audiotheque.co.uk/node/458
2. bodhisattva of the fist 8:13 www.audiotheque.co.uk/node/457
3. feel the burn 7:32 www.audiotheque.co.uk/node/456
4. give me lithium or give me death 5:26 www.audiotheque.co.uk/node/455
5. red voice 4:30 www.audiotheque.co.uk/node/454
6. neo-cortex rage 9:06 www.audiotheque.co.uk/node/451
7. heres kathy with the whether 6.54 www.audiotheque.co.uk/node/44

collectively they belong to the full-length monologue sequence red voice. commissioned as part of the beyond the boundaries festival and first performed at the door, birmingham rep, 2004. (the live performance included music improvisations from keith jafrate). a limited edition enhanced cd of red voice was also issued. the whole sequence was subsequently published in 2006 in sean burns collection – edgecities. skrev press. isbn 1-904646-34-4 . red voice is based on a series of improvised monologues recorded on discharge from hospital. red voice is both a creative performance and a work of advocacy for and on behalf of those gone/going thru similar experiences, giving voice to the alternative stories: those ‘beyond the label’, it is part of an ongoing process of answering back the health care profession where narrative is formed by professionals as the ONLY narrative, instead of A narrative, a version, a way of ‘seeing’.. red voice is both ‘legitimate theatre’ and a ‘survivors’ work: i am interested in allowing the silent/silenced to speak. i believe the nature of language is hugely political: i believe we all own our own voices and words, red voice is about reclaiming that ownership.

my latest book.
wings are giving out – sean burn’s third collection from skrev press (www.skrevpress.com / isbn 978-1-904646-56-3) has just been launched. these seven long texts commissioned and toured across europe include tattooing lorca – a poetic and personal exploration of long-term mental distress and recovery which first toured as a multimedia disability arts work in 2005/6. sean burn is one of this country’s foremost experimental writers. what marks him out from all other such writers is the radical political and social agenda he brings to this innovative body of work which includes plays and pieces of prose fiction as well as experimental poetry. he is also a collaborative writer who works with musicians, film-makers, theatre directors, visual artists and other writers, and also young people and community groups he draws on a wide range of contemporary cultural sources, often from other writers, artists and musicians who like him are on the margins or from the ‘underground’, and he also draws from histories, political, social and personal, including his own, and this gives much of his work the potency of felt experience which so many who work in a similar vein, lack. jeremy hilton – editor of fire, and author of many poetry books including, most recently, lighting up time. (troubador publishing)