Published in Inside Out Magazine, Issue 1
Bobby Baker is a painter turned performance artist, making work which celebrates the everyday by emphasising the wonder of the ordinary to reveal and inspire. Baker's work reflects her own life experiences, often referring to her domesticity through using culinary props. Her work is very inclusive; it is understandable and relevant to any audience. This seems to be especially effective in 'How to Live', a culmination of experiment-based collaborative work with Professor Richard Hallam, a clinical psychologist at Queen Mary's Hospital.
Humour and instruction slowly reveal the basics of psychotherapy, as per her own unique interpretation. Through her light touch, she explores the principles of therapy in a straightforward and credible manner. The piece is an antidote to pop-psychology and the self-help boom, which Baker believes replace religion in contemporary society. Baker's style is borrowed from instructional videos and so the work is a parody aesthetically as well as within its content.
'How to Live' discusses Baker's own experiences of Dialectical Behaviour Therapy, a type of CBT. In this, you are initially taught life skills - Baker's piece teaches her patient (a frozen pea) a set of such skills to develop a 'life worth living'. These skills, and the work as a whole, are for those with mental health experiences of their own, those without direct knowledge, and frozen vegetables. This aims to help the audience procure a greater understanding of the therapy and perhaps enrich, or unfreeze, their lives a little.
The pea represents all the P.'s of psychology, and also Baker's perceived insignificance and isolation as a patient. The pea's therapy is a very warm, human one - personifying him and suggesting that patients are dehumanised. This could be due to the type of therapy or that the patient - through illness, lack of knowledge or pop-psychology media hype - can feel distant to their treatment.
Baker found that therapy made her more aware of herself and her surroundings, the imagery that she was already using and that which was consequently developing. She aims to encourage this understanding in her audience, believing that through presenting her own experiences she encourages others to follow. Ideas and memories can then produce new associations and thought patterns within this artistic context.
'How to Live' shows how psychotherapy can turn a period of difficulty and distress into a positive and enriching experience. It makes psychology more accessible as this science becomes increasingly prevalent in society. It supports the medical profession (Baker has been involved with initiatives such as the launch of the Mental Health Helplines Partnership).
Bobby Baker's new project, 'A Model Family', is concerned with psychological issues in the family, drawing on Baker's own experiences to consider aspects of mental health care and attitudes to people who are mentally ill. This piece is in development as part of Bakers' AHRC Creative Fellowship at Queen Mary University of London, where it previewed in May, with the final piece's production planned for 2009. Baker's work can be explored in more detail at www.bobbybakersdailylife.com
Bobby Baker is a painter turned performance artist, making work which celebrates the everyday by emphasising the wonder of the ordinary to reveal and inspire. Baker's work reflects her own life experiences, often referring to her domesticity through using culinary props. Her work is very inclusive; it is understandable and relevant to any audience. This seems to be especially effective in 'How to Live', a culmination of experiment-based collaborative work with Professor Richard Hallam, a clinical psychologist at Queen Mary's Hospital.
Humour and instruction slowly reveal the basics of psychotherapy, as per her own unique interpretation. Through her light touch, she explores the principles of therapy in a straightforward and credible manner. The piece is an antidote to pop-psychology and the self-help boom, which Baker believes replace religion in contemporary society. Baker's style is borrowed from instructional videos and so the work is a parody aesthetically as well as within its content.
'How to Live' discusses Baker's own experiences of Dialectical Behaviour Therapy, a type of CBT. In this, you are initially taught life skills - Baker's piece teaches her patient (a frozen pea) a set of such skills to develop a 'life worth living'. These skills, and the work as a whole, are for those with mental health experiences of their own, those without direct knowledge, and frozen vegetables. This aims to help the audience procure a greater understanding of the therapy and perhaps enrich, or unfreeze, their lives a little.
The pea represents all the P.'s of psychology, and also Baker's perceived insignificance and isolation as a patient. The pea's therapy is a very warm, human one - personifying him and suggesting that patients are dehumanised. This could be due to the type of therapy or that the patient - through illness, lack of knowledge or pop-psychology media hype - can feel distant to their treatment.
Baker found that therapy made her more aware of herself and her surroundings, the imagery that she was already using and that which was consequently developing. She aims to encourage this understanding in her audience, believing that through presenting her own experiences she encourages others to follow. Ideas and memories can then produce new associations and thought patterns within this artistic context.
'How to Live' shows how psychotherapy can turn a period of difficulty and distress into a positive and enriching experience. It makes psychology more accessible as this science becomes increasingly prevalent in society. It supports the medical profession (Baker has been involved with initiatives such as the launch of the Mental Health Helplines Partnership).
Bobby Baker's new project, 'A Model Family', is concerned with psychological issues in the family, drawing on Baker's own experiences to consider aspects of mental health care and attitudes to people who are mentally ill. This piece is in development as part of Bakers' AHRC Creative Fellowship at Queen Mary University of London, where it previewed in May, with the final piece's production planned for 2009. Baker's work can be explored in more detail at www.bobbybakersdailylife.com
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