Through this project I originally wanted to explore the theme of finding Euphoria in our modern world. The rise of the wellness industry and recent focus on ‘self help’ inspired me. I was mostly attracted to how this infiltrates into my life and the generation I am apart of, 20+ year olds, studying, working and living in London/the UK right now. The irony of how focused the world currently is on wellness and self-help yet statistics about mental health and the dangerous night out/ binge drinking/drug culture and lifestyles inhabited by people in situations very alike to myself are in bizarre contrast.
I had no set ideas about performance or exactly what I wanted to created. However I was very keen to consider modern day drug culture, especially in comparison to that of the 70’s. In class workshops I repeatedly found myself going back to these ideas about the danger of drug culture now and how we romanticise use of drugs in the past. I kept thinking of how I could create the atmosphere of woodstock “an Aquarian Exposition: 3 Days of Peace & Music” and became slightly obsessed with things created as a result to the different attitudes to drugs in the past. Yet I also found myself desperate to resist glorifying drug use.
I have since further developed ideas around the theme of my project and have found a new interest in the link between drug use and creativity. When I’ve witnessed debates around the use of recreational drugs I have often found that people on the defence justify their activities as artists. I’m keen to explore these ideas around recreational drugs and psychedelics as a method to create, to inspire something new for artists and ‘unlock’ parts of their brains we apparently don’t have access to without the substances. I also would like to consider the ‘tortured artist’ stereotype, look at artists in the past who have been influenced by drugs and the connection between art/substances and death as a result of addiction, death for art.
Practice-based Research Project 