There is no such Thing as Health

We are all inhabitants of the "kingdom of the sick" that Susan Sontag describes in Illness as Metaphor. We all have been, are or will be sick at some point. Health is a fiction – in capitalism, it is a metaphor for being fit for work. The imperative to heal determines society's perspective on our bodies, and it leaves no room for the chronically ill, the incurable and the disabled. And, when illness occurs, we are forced to mourn another fiction: our independence. Instead of holding on to the idea of health, we ought to ask: What does it mean to live with pain, trauma and grief? To deal with depression, to move outside of normative notions of temporality, in crip time? And what vocabulary, what language can we create to share these experiences with each other? As part of There is no such Thing as Health, artists with and without psychiatric experience show their works in the gallery of the Durchblick association Leipzig. The title alludes to a quote by former British prime minister Margaret Thatcher, who claimed that "There is no such thing as society" – and thus justified her neoliberal policy of privatization and cuts in social services. The exhibition reverses this thesis: Based on the idea of illness as a social issue, it asks to let go of the ideal of health, in order to turn instead to the diverse lived realities of trauma, illness, and disability. In their work the artists deal with experiences that are in conflict with the socially prevailing expectations of performance. In doing so, they address serious issues such as pain, suicide, and discrimination. But through their own visual, material and acoustic languages, they also imagine utopias for a different way of living together. Durchblick e.V. in Leipzig is a self-help initiative for and by people with psychiatric experience. The association has its roots in the citizens' movement of the GDR and arose from a critique of psychiatry as an institution. Durchblick e.V. is an advocate for those affected by psychiatry towards politics and has been advocating for alternative models for over 30 years. The initiative supports those affected through a variety of counseling services, activities, meals and housing. Part of the offer are the art group and the artistic workshops in the house. Exhibitions are held regularly in the durch blick galerie.