Lou Lou Sainsbury: 1667: Not Alive, Just Living

Lou Lou Sainsbury, 1667: Not Alive, Just Living, 2019. Research Sketch - Work in Progress. Courtesy the artist
Lou Lou Sainsbury, 1667: Not Alive, Just Living, 2019. Research Sketch - Work in Progress. Courtesy the artist

Lou Lou Sainsbury presents a new live performance and video work, 1667: Not Alive, Just Living. Joined by artist and musician Rosa Irwin-Clark, together they will ignite the spirits of Arthur Coga – a late recipient to the 17th century non-human to human blood transfusions of the French physician, Jean-Baptiste Denis, who made numerous attempts to transfer the spirit of the lamb (via blood) into sick human patients to heal them.

Part-post-humanist gothic fiction and part-folk-revival homage; 1667: Not Alive, Just Living chronicles the time-travelling transformation of Arthur Coga during their treatment, speaking from the blood, the lives and the multitude of voices that take host of them. Working from research into histories of queer and ecological activism, British folk music, vampiricism and intersecting forms of land and social toxicity, the performance presents a spiralling fable and swan song for when ‘life’ is determined by religion and capital. As above, so below. The toxic voice of a mysterious substance seeps through the slippages, passing from carrier to carrier, species to species, with unstable and vampiric consequences.

Lou Lou Sainsbury is a non-binary artist, filmmaker, musician and writer based in London. They make things about strange and close encounters, seeking exploratory and intimate approaches to understand technology, power, and how living beings are represented in these structures. Lou Lou uses sloppy words, noisy performances and unstable images, creating treacherous and embodied fables for utopian thinking. They were an associate artist at Open School East (2017) and recently co-founded Remote Control (2019), an artist collective working with video and performance.

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Lou Lou Sainsbury, 1667: Not Alive, Just Living at Nottingham Contemporary, 2019. Photo by Samuel Kirby
Lou Lou Sainsbury, 1667: Not Alive, Just Living at Nottingham Contemporary, 2019. Photo by Samuel Kirby
Lou Lou Sainsbury, 1667: Not Alive, Just Living at Nottingham Contemporary, 2019. Photo by Samuel Kirby
Lou Lou Sainsbury, 1667: Not Alive, Just Living at Nottingham Contemporary, 2019. Photo by Samuel Kirby
Lou Lou Sainsbury, 1667: Not Alive, Just Living at Nottingham Contemporary, 2019. Photo by Samuel Kirby
Lou Lou Sainsbury, 1667: Not Alive, Just Living at Nottingham Contemporary, 2019. Photo by Samuel Kirby
Lou Lou Sainsbury, 1667: Not Alive, Just Living at Nottingham Contemporary, 2019. Photo by Samuel Kirby
Lou Lou Sainsbury, 1667: Not Alive, Just Living at Nottingham Contemporary, 2019. Photo by Samuel Kirby

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