MAIN MENU • NEW! HOW TO LIVE ON DVD • HOW TO LIVE DATES
Big questions call for big answers. After years of research, Bobby Baker is ready to give us the answer to the biggest question of all:
HOW TO LIVE
Farcical and dark, and as Bobby promises at the outset, makes you feel
better.’
The Guardian
‘Charming, eccentric, thoughtful, Baker offers you plenty to chew
on – including of course a pea.’ Financial Times
As part of her unique Therapy Empire, Bobby Baker offers a set of life-changing techniques in a show guaranteed to effect results in ordered and disordered minds alike. Using state of the art technology and remarkable special effects, the show features a live demonstration of the efficacy of the treatment as Baker holds an 'open session' with one of her many patients- a frozen pea - which has been diagnosed with a personality disorder. Watch the pea unfreeze as it learns new skills to cope with its problems and develop 'a life worth living'.
Devised and performed by Bobby Baker and co-directed by Polona Baloh Brown and made in collaboration with a team including Richard Hallam, Jocelyn Pook, Deborah May, Miranda Melville, Steve Wald, Chahine Yavroyan and Clare Allan.
HOW TO LIVE has been under development for 5 years and has received research and development funding from the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation as well as a research and development award in 2002 and a production award in 2003 from sciart, The Wellcome Trust.
Produced by Artsadmin
Length of show 75 minutes
Funded by Arts Council of England and The Wellcome Trust
HOW TO LIVE (Home version)
We all need Bobby's 11 Essential Life Skills and you can learn them now in the comfort of your own home by purchasing a specially produced training DVD or video in which Bobby, at home with one of her patients (a pea), takes you through a step-by-step guide along the path to an ordered mind.
DVD £15 VHS £12 VIDEO CLIP ORDER NOW!
EXPERIMENT: CONVERSATIONS IN ART AND SCIENCE
Includes a chapter on the How to Live research project by Bobby Baker and psychologist Richard Hallam, funded by the sciart consortium of the Wellcome Trust. Edited by Bergit Arends and Davina Thackara
Published by The Wellcome Trust, September 2003
ISBN 1 84129 043 2
For more information on Bobby's shows or to order How To Live (Home Version) or Experiment: Conversations in Art and Science please contact info@bobbybakersdailylife.com Tel: +44 (0)20 7247 5102 Fax: +44 (0)20 7247 5103
DIARY DRAWINGS
An exhibition of 30 images selected from approximately 550 drawings, made by Bobby Baker about her experiences of mental health problems.
This is the first time that images from Bobby’s diary sketchbooks have been exhibited. Bobby originally trained as a painter, and although she has continued to draw, she does not often exhibit her visual artwork. The exhibition features photographs of selected pages from many sketchbooks, containing approximately 570 drawings made to date, about her experiences over the past 9 years of suffering from profound and enduring mental health problems. The drawings have been made principally as a way of reflecting on mental distress and the ‘mental health ‘system’. Although the drawings were originally personal and private they have become a useful way of communicating thoughts and emotions that are difficult to articulate in words to professionals, friends and family. They cover experiences of day hospitals, acute psychiatric wards, ‘crisis’ teams and a variety of treatments. Copies of them have been incorporated into training programmes for professionals and used as illustrations in books. Although the images in this exhibition are very personal, many viewers will find they can identify or empathise with the subjects explored, especially the hilarity that can often help process extreme situations.
20 June – 21 March 2007
People’s Palace Cloisters, Queen Mary, University of London
Admission Free, open weekdays 10am-5pm