News | 13.04.2022
POPBACK team member Helena Botto will hold her performance called "The Museum of Impropriety" as part of the project activities. The performance will take place on May 20 and 21st at the Old Operation Theatre in London.
This project is part of Helena Botto’s practice-as-research Ph.D. at the University of Roehampton and her research at POPBACK, an international and inter-university research network studying the effects of exclusionary populism.
Helena Botto is a performer, a performance-maker, and a Ph.D. candidate at the School of Arts, Roehampton University, in London. She holds a studentship from Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia. In her practice-as-research thesis, she has been exploring the performativity of acts of populist political rhetoric, ways of fictional writing, and the thinking of democracy as an 'improper,' monstrous, and dissonant space.
About the performance
In this event, a collection of performative, sound, and visual objects is devised to examine our relationship to populism. In fiction, genres are patterns that categorize our feelings, hopes, and expectations and highlight the relationship between fiction and life. 'The Museum of Impropriety' looks at the performance styles of current populist leaders through various genres, mainly focusing on the appeal and power of this affect-provoking form of politics. By channeling and magnifying populist strategies, elements of fiction and reality blend, and the audience is encouraged to discern what is real, fake, and fiction. In 'The Museum of Impropriety,' they will humorously expose populist’s tactics as if undergoing an anatomical dissection of political spectacle.
The Museum of Impropriety will not only take over specific spaces within the Old Operating Theatre Museum & Herb Garret from 19 to 22 May, but there will be an evening performance with two runs on 20 and 21 May.
Doors will open at 6:15 PM for a 7:00 PM start. Before the show starts, guests will have time to look around the museum and purchase drinks at the Apothecary Wine Bar.
More details about the event are here.
More details are available here for those who want to know more about Helena’s project.