When: 7:00-9:00pm. Doors will open around 6:45 and the event will run aproximately 45 minutes. After the performance there will be time for a question and answer session with the poets/performers.
"Elephant in" will have an ASL interpreter available as well as a touch tour. Please email [email protected] if you wish to arrange the use of either services.
Parking is available on the east side of the Mana Contemporary Chicago building.
Cost: There is a suggested $10 ticket price
What: “Elephant in” is a performative poetry event which will address the connections between language structures and mental illnesses, using interviews and texts surrounding the Bertram Hiscock tragedy. His words and experiences will be used to highlight both how nuanced language and unjust imprisonment is a reality for many who suffer from a mental health crisis. Using Bertram’s words as a starting point, both Matt Bodett and Laura Goldstein will present a series of poems in performance that reflect on his condition and their reactions to it.
The Artists: Matt Bodett is currently a sponsored artist at HCL for the Fall of 2018. He received his MFA from Boise State University in 2011, and taught printmaking there until he moved to Chicago in 2013. Since moving to Chicago he has played an active role in disability advocacy and utilizing artwork to open dialogue around mental health. Diagnosed with schizo-affective disorder, as a visual artist, poet, and performance artist Matt has had opportunities to share his work at many venues throughout the Chicago including Steppenwolf Theater, Victory Gardens, The Poetry Foundation, Intuit: the Center for Intuitive and Outsider Art, Evanston Art Center, Gallery 400, and many other locations. His printmaking has been featured in the 3rd Global Print exhibition and the 9th Douro Biennial in Douro, Portugal, as well as print exhibitions in Tehran, Iran: Milan, Italy; and Oslo, Norway. Matt also teaches at Loyola University Chicago, Northeastern University, and is on the advisory board for the Institute for Therapy Through the Arts based in Evanston, IL.
Laura Goldstein is an experimental poet who uses constraints in her writing to address how rules affect our relationship to language and the world as social and political subjects. Her first collection of poetry, loaded arc, explores the connections between media and disaster, specifically in the case of Hurricane Katrina. loaded arc was released by New Orleans-based Trembling Pillow Press in 2013. Her second collection awesome camera is a series of experiments that approach myths of capitalism and war, published by Make Now Press in 2014. She has also published several chapbooks since 2008 with vibrant small presses across the country; the most recent is safe wars / poet in hell by damask press. She teaches critical thinking and writing, literature and poetry workshops at Loyola University and is the co-curator of the Red Rover Reading Series in Chicago.
Access: HCL is ADA accessible via the entrance on the north side of Mana Contemporary Chicago. Enter the parking lot from the intersection of Allport and Cermak. The ADA parking and entrance will be to your right. There will be Signage to help locate the ramp.