Witness artist and writer Luke ‘Luca’ Cockayne visually process his mental illness at this 12-hour durational performance. Following on from his exhibition Hard To Look At, Luke returns to SMHAF with an exhibition and performance in another attempt to answer the question: “How do we show ‘difficult’ art without re-traumatising the artist or harming the audience?”.

How can we safely curate art about mental health?
How do we hold the need for witnessing, sharing, and catharsis with the risks of triggering and re-traumatising?
How crazy is an artist allowed to be, both in and outside the gallery?
Is visual art inherently healing for psychiatric distress?
How comfy should the seating in an art gallery be?

The Concept:

A thick black line of tape cuts the gallery floor in half. At 4pm artist and writer Luke ‘Luca’ Cockayne crosses the line and takes his ‘morning’ medication: Setraline, Quitiapine, Proprananol. Then he’ll start to unpack everything he’s ever made in relation to mental health and neurodiversity.

As he unpacks he’ll touch up old paintings, finish hand-binding poetry pamphlets, re-print old zines, project films (including premiering the film version of his recent Edinburgh Fringe solo show), and re-read and re-read and re-read the hundreds of thousands of words he’s written about his time in psychiatric hospital, his various overdoses and self-harming behaviours, his miscarriage, his… unwell life.

Luca is not trapped. Sometimes he’ll re-cross the line to go outside for a smoke, or to lay on the soft comfy seating provided for the audience, but for the majority of the next 12 hours he’ll sort through the visual manifestations of his trauma.

At 4am, all being well, he’ll break the black line, take his ‘evening’ medication – Quitiapine and Proprananol – and go home.

The aftermath will remain in the gallery for ten days and nights, available to view and interact with by anyone who’s willing to step over the broken black line. Luca will try to be there to chat and answer questions and ideally sell or give away some of the zines and artwork.