PREVIEW: Reassembled, Slightly Askew: By Shannon Yee
Reassembled’ is the work of playwrite Shannon Yee, and is an immersive, audio-based dramatic installation about her experience of nearly dying in 2008 from a rare brain infection and the subsequent process of trying to put her life back together with an acquired brain injury.
Since moving to Northern Ireland from New York in 2004, Shannon has been writing numerous plays and in 2014 became one of the Mac’s Hatch Supported Artist. This provided her with the opportunity to develop ‘Assembled’ and the facilities in which to run a focus group in the MAC’s Den space.
Shannon invited neurosurgeons, arts practitioners, and brain injury support providers to come along and lay down in hospital beds to experience sections of Reassembled, and was overwhelmed by the positive feedback.
From April to December 2014, ‘Reassembled’ went through a lengthy development process as over 75 people from the medical, arts and community voluntary sectors heard sections and provided their feedback in small focus groups.
The audio-based artwork is Shannon’s interpretation of what it was like for her to descend into coma from her rare brain infection, her brain surgeries, and then her subsequent rehabilitation.
The audience experience Shannon’s artwork individually via headphones while laying on a hospital bed wearing eye masks, and let’s listening feel like they are inside Shannon’s head and experience her journey of emotion, humour and above all, hope in dealing with her brain injury.
Now, 2015 will see ‘Reassembled’ brought to theatres and gallery spaces across Northern Ireland, and used also as a training tool for biomedical professionals to experience.
On Thursday 14th May at 7.30pm there is also the opportunity to attend a free talk from writer Shannon Yee and Paul Stapleton, the sound artist who helped create ‘Reassembled, Slightly Askew’. The talk will cover the development of ‘Reassembled...’, as well as Shannon’s own medical experiences which led to the creation of the piece in the first place.
>> Reassembled, Slightly Askew By Shannon Yee as at the Playhouse and runs from Monday, 11 May to Friday, 15 May at 1pm, 6pm & 8pm. Tickets cost £5.
