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Sleep Talk: An Insight into Insomnia
Sleep and Creativity…Louise
Bourgeois…Body Clocks …
The Cost of Insomnia… Music for Sleepless
Nights…Unobtainable Treatments
10 January 2008: Insomnia, one of
the most widely reported psychological symptoms
in Britain, is the subject of Sleep Talk
the UK's first ever public symposium on
sleeplessness on 22 and 23 February 2008,
at Wellcome Collection.
Ticket costs and booking info below. Press
places are available.
Sleep Talk brings together an international
panel of experts from medical science, the
arts and humanities for a cross discipline
discussion on new insights and current understanding
of sleeplessness in all its guises.
Science and the humanities are only now
beginning to explore fully the world of
sleep, the state we all inhabit for a third
of our lives. Thirty per cent of UK adults
suffer disturbed sleep at some point in
their lives and the condition effects health,
work performance, relationships and quality
of life. Chronic insomnia can lead to mental
health problems including depression and
the misuse of alcohol or medicines in order
to gain sleep. Sleeplessness can be traced
back through history and manifests itself
in all cultures, though it is not always
recognised as insomnia.
Topics for discussion include: Is insomnia
a real disorder? What treatments are available
(and unavailable)? What does new neuroscience
tell us about insomnia? How does the highly
acclaimed artist Louise Bourgeois use insomnia
for creativity? What are the costs of sleep
disorders? How do different cultures deal
with sleeplessness and what can we learn
from them?
Sleep Talk, created by Wellcome Collection
in collaboration with the Wellcome Centre
for the History of Medicine at University
College London, is in support of Sleeping
& Dreaming, Wellcome Collection's second
major temporary exhibition that runs until
9 March 2008.
Sleep Talk Speakers & Subjects:
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The Solitary
Insomniac
Kenton Kroker, Assistant Professor of
Science and Technology Studies, York
University, Toronto, Canada
Is insomnia a real disorder? asks Kenton
Kroker. Insomnia is not simply one's
inability to fall asleep, but a myriad
of 'claimed reasons' from delusion to
failure of will, and as such is not
a 'real disorder' but one that has become
publicly owned, linked more to the 'politics
of sleep' than personal experience. |
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The Science of Insomnia:
What helps and what makes things worse
Chris Idzikowski, Director, Edinburgh
Sleep Centre and Kevin Morgan, Director,
Clinical Sleep Research Unit, Loughborough
University.
New research on brain pathways and the
biological clock to improve understanding
of the causes of insomnia will be explored.
Other topics include how it can be treated,
including effective evidence based non-drug
treatments not available on the NHS,
the costs of insomnia to individuals
and society and why mismanaging insomnia
costs even more. |
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Sleep, Creativity and
the Healthy Mind
Russell Foster, Professor of Circadian
Neuroscience and Head of the Department
of Ophthalmology, University of Oxford.
Our drive for a 24 hour culture is having
unanticipated costs to both our physical
and mental health. If continued it may
condemn whole sections of our society
to a dismal future, says Russell Foster.
In Shakespeare's Julius Caesar we are
told to 'enjoy the honey-heavy dew of
slumber', yet today we abandon sleep
and work ever longer hours, in conflict
with our basic biology. What is this
costing us? |
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Louise Bourgeois's
Insomnia Drawings
Ann Coxon, Assistant Curator, Tate Modern
How one of the world's great artists
turned her insomnia into a productive,
artistic experience. Ann Coxon, will
discuss Bourgeois's Insomnia Drawings,
and explore how the artist's approach
can be used by insomnia sufferers to
find solace from the condition. Tate
Modern's major retrospective of Louise
Bourgeois work runs until 20 January. |
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Strange Suffering:
Insomnia in Human History
Eluned Summers-Bremner, Senior Lecturer
in English, University of Auckland,
New Zealand
Writer and historian Eluned Summers-Bremner
will consider how our contemporary obsession
with insomnia contrasts sleeplessness
in earlier cultures. By looking at how
insomnia appears in the art, literature
and social arrangements of other societies
we may learn to understand insomnia
in our own society in a different light.
Insomnia: a cultural history, by Eluned
Summers-Bremner, published by Reaktion
Books, January 2008. |
Music for Sleepless Nights
Innovative classical music group, Manning
Camerata, will open the symposium on Friday
evening with a concert of music by Domenico
Scarlatti, featuring Croatian Countertenor
Max Emanuel Cencic. The work was written
in the 18th century as a curative piece
for Philip V of Spain who was a depressive
insomniac and was performed to help the
king rise in the morning after a sleepless
night.
Further music from the same era, composed
for similar purpose, will be performed in
the Sleeping and Dreaming exhibition gallery
throughout Saturday 23 February.
Ken Arnold, Head of Public Programmes,
Wellcome Collection said: "Sleep
Talk brings together experts from around
the world to discuss an issue that impacts
on almost one third of Britons. Combining
ideas from the biomedical sciences, humanities
and the arts in this way is exactly what
Wellcome Collection is all about: unparalleled
insights into the human condition."
| Sleep
Talk Ticket Information and Bookings |
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| Event dates |
Friday 22 February, 1900
- 2100hrs. Saturday 23 February, 1000
- 1630hrs. |
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| Location |
Wellcome Collection, 183
Euston Road, London, NW1 2BE |
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| Booking |
Tickets cost £30
or £20 concessions. The price
includes entry to event on both days
and refreshments throughout (including
lunch on Saturday) |
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| Public booking line |
020 7611 2222. Details
at www.wellcomecollection.org/sleeptalk |
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| Press
Tickets |
Spaces for press are available
at no charge. Spaces are strictly limited
and will be allocated on a first come,
first served bases. Contact Mike Findlay,
020 7611 8612, m.findlay@wellcome.ac.uk
or Will Kallaway 020 7221 7883, william@kallaway.co.uk,
to book. |
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End
Press
Information
Wellcome Collection media centre and
images:
www.kallaway.co.uk/wellcome.htm
Mike Findlay
T +44 (0)20 7611 8612
E m.findlay@wellcome.ac.uk
Will Kallaway
T +44 (0)20 7221 7883
E will.kallaway@kallaway.co.uk
About Wellcome Collection: www.wellcomecollection.org
Wellcome Collection is a new £30 million
visitor attraction from the Wellcome Trust
that opened on 21 June 2007. Admission is
free.
Wellcome Collection is a world first. It
combines three contemporary galleries together
with the world-famous Wellcome Library,
a public events forum, a café, a
bookshop, a conference centre and a club,
to provide visitors with radical insights
into the human condition. Wellcome Collection
builds on the vision, legacy and personal
collection of Wellcome Trust founder Sir
Henry Wellcome and is part of the Wellcome
Trust's mission to foster and promote research
with the aim of improving human and animal
health. The building is centred on three
substantial galleries totalling 1350 m2:
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Special exhibitions
(650 m2): The largest gallery
in Wellcome Collection is used to host
temporary exhibitions, presenting newly
commissioned works and thematic shows
structured around topics of medical,
cultural and ethical significance. The
current exhibition is Sleeping &
Dreaming. |
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Medicine Man (350
m2): This permanent exhibition
contains more than 500 strange and beautiful
artefacts from Sir Henry Wellcome's
original collection, presented in a
rich American walnut-panelled gallery,
centred on a large 'Wunderkammer' cabinet.
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Medicine Now (350
m2): The permanent Medicine
Now exhibition explores contemporary
medical topics through the eyes of scientists,
artists and popular culture in a bright
contemporary environment. |
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Public events:
A lively programme of public events
expands on exhibition themes. Wellcome
Collection's flexible events space,
the Forum, will bring audiences face-to-face
with prominent experts and personalities
from the worlds of art, science and
the humanities, to explore current issues
and ancient mysteries of human wellbeing.
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Wellcome Library:
The Wellcome Library contains over two
million items and is one of the world's
greatest collections for the study of
the history and progress of medicine.
The public areas of the Library span
two floors of Wellcome Collection and
include the fully restored Reading Room,
first used as a Hall of Statuary by
Sir Henry Wellcome in 1932. |
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About the Wellcome Trust
The Wellcome Trust is the largest charity
in the UK and the second largest medical
research charity in the world. It funds
innovative biomedical research, in the UK
and internationally, spending over £500
million each year to support the brightest
scientists with the best ideas. The Wellcome
Trust supports public debate about biomedical
research and its impact on health and wellbeing.
Wellcome Trust funding has supported a number
of major successes, including:
sequencing
the human genome
establishing
UK Biobank
development
of the antimalarial drug artemisinin
pioneering
cognitive behavioural therapies for psychological
disorders
building
the Wellcome Wing at the Science Museum
setting
up the Wellcome Trust Case Control Consortium,
the largest ever genetic study
of common diseases such as diabetes, coronary
heart disease and bipolar disorder.
The Wellcome Trust is a charity registered
in England, no. 210183.
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