SICK! Festival 2022 Announces Events

SICK! Festival (www.sickfestival.com) has announced some of their first events. Presented for the first time in North Manchester, an open top bus Menopause choir, a powerful photographic exhibition exploring domestic violence, and an interactive shipping container of tiny tower blocks form a trio of events forming part of the return of the multi-arts festival, which runs from Sunday, May 1st through Tuesday, May 31st in Moston, Harpurhey, Charleston, and across Greater Manchester.

FREE events taking place outdoors, indoors and online

• First three events announced with more exciting activities to be unveiled soon
• SICK! festival moves base to Moston, Harpurhey and Charlestown in North Manchester with a commitment to the area for the next 10 years
• Musicians, choirs and local communities will board the open top 'Menopause Bus' to shout, and sing about a topic rarely discussed in our societies in an international collaboration between Manchester and Zurich
• Winner of the BJP Portrait of Britain 2019, Allie Crewe partners with domestic violence charity Safe Lives for bold new photography exhibition I AM at Manchester Central Library with portraits also displayed across the city's Metrolink system
• Artist and musician Jimmy Cauty's (KLF) fascinating interactive artwork Estate brings a miniature (1:24 scale) set of concrete tower blocks to a 40ft shipping container in Moston

SICK! Festival 2022 is back with colourful, new experiences and activities as the festival's first three events are announced today. In a first for the area and the wider Manchester arts community, the festival where health and creativity meet, is now based in and will host the majority of its events within Moston, Harpurhey and Charlestown in North Manchester.

The 2022 festival has been developed with International Artists alongside local participants from Moston, Harpurhey and Charlestown. Exciting and unexpected experiences will pop up everywhere from interactive activities to talks and community events to get everyone thinking and talking together. The festival are keen to get to know their local community and for everyone to get involved.

The festival is developed with people and organizations from the local community. Projects are developed and created with local people, addressing issues and opportunities that are important to the community.

With a mix of free outdoor, indoor and online events, the festival will follow COVID protocols with programmes suitable for families, young people, adults and everyone interested in using art & creativity to explore mental, physical and social challenges.

Festival director Helen Medland said: "This year we're bringing the festival right into the heart of Manchester, we've just made a commitment to work in Moston, Harpurhey and Charlestown for the next 10 years, so we'll be delivering a lot of the festival there. We've been working with a whole range of different communities, thinking about what affects their health and wellbeing. We're really excited to be building long-term connections in these neighbourhoods.

"It feels like an important time to think again about some of the subjects that we often struggle to talk about like mental health, domestic violence and health inequalities. We also want to explore wellbeing and celebrate the great stuff that goes on in our communities. It's a festival that you really can get out there and explore.

We've got some fantastic artists in the programme from Manchester, the rest of the UK and around the world. They include visual artists, poets, performance makers, we've even been working with a computer games designer. We want to make a programme that is really innovative and thought-provoking but relevant and accessible to as many people as possible.

"We're only a small team and we've had so much help from loads of different organisations including health services, charities, community groups, universities and other arts organisations as well as some fantastic funders who make it all possible, we're really grateful for this and we wish to thank you all big time. I'm really looking forward to getting all this great work out in public and meeting the audience."

Gospel singer-songwriter Tosin Akindele & Swiss musician Sbiyelle Aeberli present The Menopause Bus. Musicians, choirs and communities come together for this visual and choral collaboration between Manchester and Zurich. The performers will climb aboard a specially designed open top bus to shout about a subject which is often taboo in our societies. Touring public spaces and popular events in both cities, the Menopause Bus will provide a stage to sing newly written songs, drawing on experiences of the menopause shared between the participants in the UK and Switzerland. The lower deck of the bus will become a social engagement hub, offering information and conversations about the menopause.

Musician and artist Jimmy Cauty's MDZ Estate is an interactive, multi-media touring artwork comprising of four concrete tower blocks built at 1:24 scale and displayed in a 40ft shipping container. Each tower block is 17 floors high (approx. 2 metres) with meticulously crafted derelict interiors - some with lights, toilets and tiny TVs playing looped public information broadcasts. One tower block is dedicated to residential and light industrial Live Work Die units, another is a children's prison, the third a high-rise residential care home, and the last appears to have functioned as a pagan religious centre.

Award winning photographer Allie Crewe's I AM is developed in partnership with domestic abuse charity, SafeLives. Her bold and powerful images bear witness to the lives and experiences of survivors of domestic violence from Manchester and across the UK. When a person leaves a violent or controlling relationship they have often lost their core identity. I AM is an opportunity for transformation, for new identities to emerge and for new journeys to begin.

About SICK! Festival

SICK! Festival faces up to the complexities of mental and physical health. They present an outstanding international arts programme, weaving in perspectives from researchers, clinical practitioners, public health professionals, charities and those with lived experience of the issues they address. Themes are explored through many art forms such as dance, theatre, film, spoken word and through discussion and debate. They present and commission powerful, innovative and engaging work by artists from across Manchester, the UK and the world at large.

They take the conversation into the heart of the communities where the subjects matter most as well as major cultural venues. SICK! Festival has grown and evolved since 2013, emerging from reflections on our own lives and the lives of people around us to embrace issues of wider significance for communities and deep importance for individuals. They are constantly guided by those communities and individuals, who ground our work in real-life experience, huge knowledge and immense understanding of the sensitivities of emotive issues. All too often these subjects are kept away from public view and debate. They exist to change that.

Web and social media links: www.sickfestival.com | Insta: @sick_festival | FB: sickfestival | Twitter: @SICKfestival

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