Happiness Clinic in Berlin
In reaction to the devastating impacts of COVID-19 on mental health, Berlin-based artists Anna Adam and Anna Luca Mogyoros decided to create and curate “Happiness Clinic”, an ephemeral clinic, which will offer “artistic treatments”, cures, cares and therapies, in form of public participatory performances to celebrate joy, happiness, and spread positivity in today's uncertain world. During one whole day the “Happiness Clinic” will open its fictional doors in Berlin, and encourage the public to participate in 9 free interactive public space performances happening simultaneously in 9 different spots throughout the whole city. 9 participative outdoor performances - including ceremony, ritual, promenade, multi-sensorial experience, collective actions, gathering, public intervention, celebration, party - will be selected and presented through a transparent open call alongside three axes (“Care”, “Creation”, “Connection”), all of them coping with a variety of mental health and psychological problems, such as stress, anxiety, depressive symptoms, insomnia, denial, stigma, anger and fear caused by the pandemic.
The intersection of COVID-19 and mental health
Mental health is an important part of overall health and wellbeing. It affects how we think, feel, act, and also how we handle stress, relate to others, and make choices during an emergency. On October 6, 2020, WHO published the results of a survey of the impact of COVID-19 on mental, neurological, and substance use services in 130 WHO Member States. This report comes on the back of mounting evidence that the COVID-19 pandemic is having monumental effects on the mental health and wellbeing of populations worldwide. Public health actions, such as social distancing, can make people feel isolated and lonely and can increase stress and anxiety. Misuse of substances, particularly alcohol, is rising. And as with many other features of this pandemic, not all people have been affected equally. Frontline workers are experiencing increased workload and trauma, making them susceptible to stress, burnout, depression, and post-traumatic stress disorder. Yet, the world is woefully unprepared to deal with the mental health impact of this pandemic, and we believe that art has a significant role to play.
It is important to let people know that it is completely normal to not feel all right all the time – it’s understandable to feel sad, distressed, worried, confused, anxious or angry during this crisis. Everyone reacts differently to difficult events, and some may find this time more challenging than others. During this particular time, people may be looking for new or additional ways to help them feel mentally better and get through. The main purpose of “Happiness Clinic” is to react to this context by improving Berliners’ mental health and wellbeing through 9 participatory public space performances.
It is important to let people know that it is completely normal to not feel all right all the time – it’s understandable to feel sad, distressed, worried, confused, anxious or angry during this crisis. Everyone reacts differently to difficult events, and some may find this time more challenging than others. During this particular time, people may be looking for new or additional ways to help them feel mentally better and get through. The main purpose of “Happiness Clinic” is to react to this context by improving Berliners’ mental health and wellbeing through 9 participatory public space performances.
Supporting others' mental wellbeing
There is a lot art can do to help people during this time. Another report from the WHO, published in 2019, has concluded that engaging in art-based activities can significantly benefit health, both mentally and physically. Engaging people in activities such as dancing, singing and creating provides an added dimension to how people can improve their physical and mental health.
In “Happiness Clinic”, 9 interactive public space performances, including among others live acts, rituals, ceremonies, cares, are imagined along three complementary and transversal axes to cope with the impact of COVID-19 on mental health:
In “Happiness Clinic”, 9 interactive public space performances, including among others live acts, rituals, ceremonies, cares, are imagined along three complementary and transversal axes to cope with the impact of COVID-19 on mental health:
- Care of the body
- Creation and co-creation
- Connection with others, community-building
Supporting Berlin-based artists
The outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic particularly threatens the future of artists, creators and cultural operators, who are severely impacted by the enforcement of social distancing measures and the consequent postponements, cancellations or closures of events. As the OECD demonstrates in a recent report, the risks are high for creators, artists and those working in the entertainment sector – a group of workers who are already vulnerable.
As a response to this situation, in the “Happiness Clinic” we want to cooperate with 9 Berlin-based artists, so as to redistribute the earned grant locally, ethically and equally. Every participating artist, selected through a transparent open call, will receive a decent fee.
As a response to this situation, in the “Happiness Clinic” we want to cooperate with 9 Berlin-based artists, so as to redistribute the earned grant locally, ethically and equally. Every participating artist, selected through a transparent open call, will receive a decent fee.
Transparent open call
We will issue and jury a thematic open call, and encourage Berlin-based artists and collectives to apply.
Through a completely transparent selection process, a jury will choose 9 proposals (3 / axe) belonging to all kinds of aesthetics including non-representative, non-canonical, marginal, experimental forms. So as to avoid “seeing the same names everywhere”, we will also pay attention to select Berlin-based artists with none or very few experiences. We are also dedicated to build a broadly diverse and inclusive staff representing all races, ethnicities, ages, genders and backgrounds. |
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Applicants’ proposal must be, in terms of form:
In terms of concept, applications must develop one of the three axes:
- Performative in the wide sense of the term (ceremony, ritual, care, public space interventions, promenade, multi-sensorial experience, lecture, talk, workshop, collective actions, gathering, party...)
- Collective, participatory, and engage actively the public while respecting social distancing directions of local authorities
- Last maximum 3 hours and can be repeated several times in row during the day
- Be adapted to outdoor with no technical requirements
- Preferably rely on a technique, such as naturopathy – aromatherapy, energy technology, relaxation techniques – sophrology, manual techniques – osteopathy, kinesiology, podology, sport or on an approach like dietetics, food coaching, phytotherapy, traditional massage, reflexology, reiki, magnetism, feng shui, meditation, relaxation, hair care, body care, ayurvedic care, stretching, hiking, qi gong, pilates, tai chi chuan, art therapy, music therapy, dance therapy…
In terms of concept, applications must develop one of the three axes:
- Axe 1 – Care of the body, development of self-confidence and encouragement of self-care and self-love through the use of sport, dance and movement exercises as political tool to:
- challenge the mainstream fashionable “ideal” body;
- defy the traditional canon (in terms of proportion, size, scale, shape and aesthetic) together with the dominant representation of the healthy and unhealthy body;
- free participants from the concept of “standard of beauty” and "body norms".
- Axe 2 – Creation and co-creation through alternative, experimental and horizontal learning and unlearning processes using those marginal forms (ballroom dance, nightclub dance, street dance…) and aesthetics which are currently rejected by the conformist mainstream canonical dance history and market (eg. vulgar, kitsch, narrative...), as oppositional tools to:
- challenge the traditional hierarchy of genres and techniques in western academic art;
- question current hegemonic aesthetic trends and defy dominant cultural values and ideologies.
- Axe 3 – Connection with others and community-building activities are seen as a “call for gathering” for friendship, reciprocal support, collective study on a particular subject/issue, and tooling. These are simply human experiences which go beyond relational aesthetics by introducing the production of knowledge and the sharing of skills and tools in addition to the creation of friendly and safe spaces.
Timing
- 1,5 month before the opening of the “Happiness Clinic”: Open Call for proposals from 9 Berlin-based artists
- 1 month before the opening:
- Administration (contract agreements with the selected artists)
- One-on-one meetings with the selected artists
- 10 days before the opening
- Opening of the “Happiness Clinic”: one full day of free participatory performances providing positivity, happiness, joy, wellbeing, self-care and self-love against the impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic on mental health.
Ethics and values
“Happiness Clinic” is a community art project which aims to be responsible, ethically engaged and socially impactful through its concept and form by:
- Coping with the mental and psychological consequences of the pandemic
- Building micro-communities, human connections, interactions after a long period of social distancing and isolation
- Performing outdoor (parc, street, square, monument…) to open the project to a wider public
- Promoting contemporary dance and performance through generous and simple interactive actions, understandable and appreciable by everyone
- Putting the emphasis on emotions, joy, happiness and human relations
- Giving financial support for local artists
- Promoting less-known, less-visible artists
- Showing unrepresented, oppositional, “out of the box” aesthetics
Curating as artistic practice
Through a curatorial form, we wish to create an alternative system of thinking and behaving, based on cooperation, participation and engagement.
“Happiness Clinic” frees itself from the obsession with the new, the career, the exposure and the haste to overproduce, that this overall race for novelty and overconsumption generate.
“Happiness Clinic” is an anti-fast art, an apology for slowness, a dazzling, passionate and generous platform for small actions and sustainable changes.
“Happiness Clinic” frees itself from the obsession with the new, the career, the exposure and the haste to overproduce, that this overall race for novelty and overconsumption generate.
“Happiness Clinic” is an anti-fast art, an apology for slowness, a dazzling, passionate and generous platform for small actions and sustainable changes.
Credits
Concept: Gray Box
Curators, project managers: Anna Ádám / Anna Luca Mogyorós
Performance: 9 Berlin-based artists selected through an open call
Performance venues: outdoor (parc, street, square…), reserved by the partner institution
Financial support: VARP Performing Arts Grant (under progress)
Curators, project managers: Anna Ádám / Anna Luca Mogyorós
Performance: 9 Berlin-based artists selected through an open call
Performance venues: outdoor (parc, street, square…), reserved by the partner institution
Financial support: VARP Performing Arts Grant (under progress)
A bit about us
Anna Ádám is a visual artist and performance maker based between Berlin, Paris and Budapest, whose work blurs the boundaries between choreography, image, and object, with emphasis on the body and on the movement as the central forms of expression. She studied performance and fashion before obtaining her Master of Arts from the ENSAPC Art School in Cergy, France, in 2016. By combining performing arts, visual arts and curatorial practices, Anna Ádám’s work transgresses normative discourses, challenges gender boundaries, systems of representation, standards of beauty together with the established codes of the fashionable body.
Anna Ádám also considers workshops, community building activities and curatorial practices as part of her main artistic medium. At the intersection of an art workshop and an interactive performance, in the form of "thematic movement research laboratories", private one-on-one "séances", experimental learning and unlearning sessions, Art Fitness classes and JAM LABS, she creates and curates social and spatial contexts, develops new forms of collective aesthetics based on participation, connection, and physical presence.
Anna Ádám also participated as a performance artist to external projects (Palais de Tokyo (FR), Musée Georges Pompidou (FR)...). Since 2016 she presents regularly her work in both theaters (E-Werk Kulturzentrum (DE), Theater MU (HU), National Theater (HU), Piccolo Tea- tro (DE)...) and exhibition spaces (Ludwig Museum (HU), Museum of Modern Art Yerevan (AM), National Museum of History Paris (FR)...), and holds workshops in universities across Europe (Austria, France, Hungary, Serbia, Armenia...). In 2019 she gave seminars at the Academy of Fine Arts in Vienna (AT) and at the University of Artois (FR). In 2020 she is resident artist at the Mediterranean Dance Center (HT) and at ZFinMalta (MT). In 2021 she will collaborate with Dance City Theater (UK), La Générale (FR), Abbaye de Maubuisson (FR) and teach with the ZeroPlus Dance School (HU) and the Ecole Nationale Supérieure d'Arts de Paris-Cergy (FR).
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Anna Luca Mogyorós: Anna Luca Mogyorós is a Berlin-based visual artist. She was born and raised in Budapest, Hungary. Anna Luca is using a wide range of media - including painting, collage, and drawing, as well as performance and installation art. She is primarily working with water-based mediums on paper. Anna Luca Mogyorós started her studies at the Hungarian Fine Arts University (MKE) in the painting department in 2014 and currently studying at Weißensee Kunsthochschule Berlin (KHB) in Fine Arts/Painting. She participated in group exhibitions in Germany and Hungary and had a solo exhibition in Budapest in 2018. Anna Luca is exploring social issues surrounding gender, sexuality, vulnerability, and violence through her works. In her artistic practice, she is using self- mythologization as a way of storytelling and a method of questioning received ideas and over-generalized beliefs. Her works are often portraying sexual acts and bodies in motion. These images are mostly representing erotic, platonic, and familial love relationships. She is balancing with dualities such as construction/ deconstruction, figurative/ abstract, and preservation/ destruction. In an ongoing series started in 2017, Anna Luca is building an “image lexicon” of approximately 250 ink paintings that depicts a reinterpretation of familiar themes from a shared pool of traditional stories and genres. Anna Luca Mogyorós is collaborating with the Gray Box collective (FR) since 2016. Gray Box creates and curates performances, exhibitions, fashion collections, and educational projects. She worked for Studio Tomás Saraceno in production.
Anna Ádám also considers workshops, community building activities and curatorial practices as part of her main artistic medium. At the intersection of an art workshop and an interactive performance, in the form of "thematic movement research laboratories", private one-on-one "séances", experimental learning and unlearning sessions, Art Fitness classes and JAM LABS, she creates and curates social and spatial contexts, develops new forms of collective aesthetics based on participation, connection, and physical presence.
Anna Ádám also participated as a performance artist to external projects (Palais de Tokyo (FR), Musée Georges Pompidou (FR)...). Since 2016 she presents regularly her work in both theaters (E-Werk Kulturzentrum (DE), Theater MU (HU), National Theater (HU), Piccolo Tea- tro (DE)...) and exhibition spaces (Ludwig Museum (HU), Museum of Modern Art Yerevan (AM), National Museum of History Paris (FR)...), and holds workshops in universities across Europe (Austria, France, Hungary, Serbia, Armenia...). In 2019 she gave seminars at the Academy of Fine Arts in Vienna (AT) and at the University of Artois (FR). In 2020 she is resident artist at the Mediterranean Dance Center (HT) and at ZFinMalta (MT). In 2021 she will collaborate with Dance City Theater (UK), La Générale (FR), Abbaye de Maubuisson (FR) and teach with the ZeroPlus Dance School (HU) and the Ecole Nationale Supérieure d'Arts de Paris-Cergy (FR).
MORE...
Anna Luca Mogyorós: Anna Luca Mogyorós is a Berlin-based visual artist. She was born and raised in Budapest, Hungary. Anna Luca is using a wide range of media - including painting, collage, and drawing, as well as performance and installation art. She is primarily working with water-based mediums on paper. Anna Luca Mogyorós started her studies at the Hungarian Fine Arts University (MKE) in the painting department in 2014 and currently studying at Weißensee Kunsthochschule Berlin (KHB) in Fine Arts/Painting. She participated in group exhibitions in Germany and Hungary and had a solo exhibition in Budapest in 2018. Anna Luca is exploring social issues surrounding gender, sexuality, vulnerability, and violence through her works. In her artistic practice, she is using self- mythologization as a way of storytelling and a method of questioning received ideas and over-generalized beliefs. Her works are often portraying sexual acts and bodies in motion. These images are mostly representing erotic, platonic, and familial love relationships. She is balancing with dualities such as construction/ deconstruction, figurative/ abstract, and preservation/ destruction. In an ongoing series started in 2017, Anna Luca is building an “image lexicon” of approximately 250 ink paintings that depicts a reinterpretation of familiar themes from a shared pool of traditional stories and genres. Anna Luca Mogyorós is collaborating with the Gray Box collective (FR) since 2016. Gray Box creates and curates performances, exhibitions, fashion collections, and educational projects. She worked for Studio Tomás Saraceno in production.
Our former public space projects
Celebration, 2019 © Gray Box
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Recycling costume creation, 2019 © Gray Box
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Public space interventions, 2018 © Gray Box
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Freak show carnival, 2018 © Gray Box
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Ritual, 2017 © Gray Box
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Multi-sensorial experience, 2017 © Gray Box
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Fashion performance, 2017 © Gray Box
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Discussion, 2017 © Gray Box
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Collective storytelling, 2016 © Gray Box
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Outdoor performance, 2016 © Gray Box
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