Into this Recovery Center by Jenna Bliss
For this new performance Jenna Bliss draws on the history of the Lincoln Detox in the South Bronx, New York. In the 1960s and 70s the South Bronx was one of the poorest communities in the United States and consumed by heroin addiction. As a result in 1970 the Lincoln Detox was initiated following the occupation of Lincoln Hospital by local addicts, Think Lincoln a group of doctors from the hospital, members of the Young Lords and Black Panther Party, as well as community health workers from the Health Revolutionary Unity Movement (HRUM), together they launched a drug detox programme.
In an anxious society drugs, both legal and illegal, are what we internalise to effect our way of ‘being here’ (or ‘there’). In this performance, Bliss looks at what society considers as drugs, and how state law, foreign policy and agencies such as the CIA, influence the definition and availability of drugs. Bliss brings together diverse elements that trace the history of Lincoln Detox to the present day, allowing spheres of social engagement to be exposed, disrupted and reassembled. The performance will use some Eastern practices already used by the clinic to think through our own anxiety in the West.
Into this Recovery Center is part of Acting Out Nottingham, curated by PSY. Commissioned with the South London Gallery.
Acting Out Nottingham is a festival across venues in Nottingham April-May 2015 including performance, moving image, exhibitions, music and discussions bringing together the arts and mental health. A collaboration with The University of the Arts, London.