This year at Brainchlid we’re exploring endings, and as part of that journey we’re opening up space for an honest conversation about death.
What are we afraid of? What is the consequence of societies inability to talk about death? How does engaging with it change the way we live?
Brainchild is bringing together artists from different disciplines to discuss the taboos around death and the ways in which they have re-imagined experiences of grief in their creative work.
Zoe Hunter Gordon, who is charing the conversation is an Associate Programmer on the Brainchild team and a filmmaker with a background in documentary television. Her debut documentary short as director, ill, actually was funded by the BFI and broadcast BBC 4. Her debut fiction short as writer/director, St Katherine’s Pier, stars Lauren Lyle (Outlander) and is currently in post-production. Her debut play, Cecilia, was produced at the Kings Head Theatre and shortlisted for the Yale Drama Prize, and her collaboration with Engineer Theatre “Gap In The Light” was produced at the New Diorama and Offie nominated.
Ed Haslam is a visual artist who collaborated on The Garden of Earthly Delights project in the woods at Brainchild in 2017. His work Nothing to Be Frightened of occupies the tree line of the shack stage this year. Made in response to personal experiences of grief, it makes light work of his own mortality, as an event not to be feared.
Jessica Butcher is a playwright and actor, best know for her play Sparks, a two-hander musical about the brain’s response to grief, which she both wrote and performed in. It sold out at the Edinburgh Festival 2018 winning the Best Musical Award from Musical Theatre Review, and will be showing at Brainchild this year.
James Rowland is a theatremaker and storyteller, he has toured nationally and internationally with his award-winning trilogy of one person shows Songs of Friendship (Team Viking, A Hundred Different Words for Love and Revelations). Team Viking is the remarkable, hilarious and heart-lifting story of how James gave his best mate the Viking send-off he wanted and you’ll have a chance to see it at the festival this year.