Photo: Matt Wilson
AUTUMN EVENTS 2013
The Empathy Roadshow
person number 9
PEOPLE UNITED
Sat 14 Sept 6.30pm Tickets £5 01227 787787 marlowetheatre.com We’ve recently discovered that we’re The Marlowe hard-wired for empathy – but what Studio, The Friars, actually IS empathy? How do we know we’re feeling it, and what good does it do? Canterbury, CT1 2AS From interviewing a neuroscientist in Amsterdam to getting her hair cut by an Thur 17 Oct empathic hairdresser, Sarah Woods, 7.30pm playwright and campaigner, has spent the Tickets £5 last 5 months trying to find the answers. 020 7650 2350 With beautiful, funny and moving stories artsadmin.co.uk gathered from people in Kent, this Artsadmin, Toynbee interactive, multi-media, one-woman Studios, 28 show, is Sarah’s response to her research. Commercial Street, London E1 6AB As part of the Wise Words Festival
a moment of your time People United, in partnership with Turner Contemporary, has commissioned artist Maria Amidu to respond to objects in the gallery’s exhibition Curiosity: Art and the Pleasures of Knowing. Maria is exploring how art enables us to question our own values, morality and the way that we live our lives. The exhibition runs until 15 September (closed Mondays). Free entry To find out the times when Maria will be at the gallery visit peopleunited.org.uk Turner Contemporary, Margate CT9 1HG
AUTUMN EVENTS 2013
People United: Living Rooms Are you interested in arts, kindness and social change? We are bringing together leading artists, academics and thinkers who, through their work, are exploring the factors that might grow kinder more cohesive societies, and the role that the arts might play in inspiring people to think and act in the interest of others. We want them and you to explore the art of living together in a relaxed, informal and inquiring atmosphere. Expect a warm welcome and a light supper. Places are limited.
Empathy: the monkey and the peanut
Fri 27 Sept, 4pm – 6.30pm Tickets £6 Concs £4 (includes light supper) Limited to 30 places Tel. 01227 811800 info@peopleunited.org.uk Canterbury Innovation Centre, University Road, Canterbury CT2 7FG
Sarah Woods is a playwright and campaigner who writes for theatre, radio and television. She works with empathy exploring its role in helping us build stronger relationships and better communities. As well as The Empathy Roadshow (see above), her radio play about empathy Watch Me, was recently broadcast on BBC Radio 4. She is also working with Swansea College of Medicine, exploring the role of empathy in healthcare and healthcare education. Professor Christian Keysers is a neuroscientist and author of The Empathic Brain. His work on mirror neurons has been seminal for the scientific study of empathy. He currently leads The Social Brain Lab at the Netherlands Institute for Neuroscience. Through the investigation of shared circuits, the lab attempts to understand the neural basis of empathy and its dysfunctions. It is generously financed by the European Research Council (ERC). With the audience Sarah and Christian will explore their shared curiosity in empathy, and its role in life’s smallest moments and greatest challenges.
Tom Crompton
Beyond ourselves: can art shape our values?
Dorothy Cross
Tom Crompton is Change Strategist at WWF-UK. His interest and curiosity in how social change is brought about led him to draw on the work of social psychologists and political scientists to write Common Cause: the case for working with our cultural values. This seminal publication has triggered a major shift in understanding the importance of values and how they shape our attitudes and behaviours, and are shaped in turn by social and institutional norms.
Wed 20 Nov, 4pm – 6.30pm Tickets £6 Concs £4 (includes light supper) Limited to 40 places Tel. 01843 233000 turnercontemporary.org/ whats-on Turner Contemporary, Margate CT9 1HG
Sarah Woods
Artist Dorothy Cross lives in Connemara, on Ireland’s wild, west coast. Her sculpture, film and photography play with the relationship of the human and the natural world, seeing both as sites of difficulty and desire. Turner Contemporary is showcasing her work this autumn and is partnering with People United to host this Living Room.
Christian Keysers
Together we will explore how art might inspire us to question and challenge societal norms, helping to foster values that are more likely to lead to prosocial attitudes and behaviours. AUTUMN EVENTS 2013
People United is a creative laboratory and pioneering charity. We are interested in the role the arts can play in growing a more kind and caring society. We develop innovative projects, undertake research and support new creative work. In short: we’re a catalyst for kindness.
01227 811800 www.peopleunited.org.uk info@peopleunited.org.uk Registered Charity No. 1126729
AUTUMN EVENTS 2013