Hyper Functional, Ultra Healthy | Natasha Trotman: SUBSET / RESET

A new film work by Studios resident Natasha Trotman, as part of Hyper Functional, Ultra Healthy, a programme of six specially commissioned artworks exploring the concept and practice of wellness.  

Neurodivergence is a term used to describe ways in which the human brain can function, learn and process information differently. Neurodivergence includes Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Conditions, Autism, Dyslexia and Dyspraxia.

Trotman’s film combines imagery and poetry to highlight certain neurodivergent perspectives. SUBSET / RESET explores non-normative perceptions and experiences of the everyday, trials, triumphs and challenges through the contributions of its participants, who have each worked with the artist to develop a verse of the narration. The film invites audiences to consider non-normative lived experiences and ways of being. 

Watch SUBSET / RESET below:

ARTIST BIO

Natasha Trotman is an artist, inclusive designer, maker and researcher whose work focuses on mental difference and neurodiversity as a way to foster new conversations and new approaches to the world around us. Her work examines different ways of experiencing and processing the world – from people with hidden disabilities and neurodivergent communities such as people with dyspraxia and autism, through to people living with dementia; she also works with neurotypical people.

Natasha completed a Masters degree in Information Experience Design at the Royal College of Art in 2016. Most recently working as a Research Associate at The Helen Hamlyn Centre for Inclusive Design and The Wellcome Trust on the 'Design and The Mind' research project in the Wellcome Collection Hub, which engages and co-creates with neurodiverse groups and neurodivergent individuals. She has exhibited widely since 2013.
 

HYPER FUNCTIONAL, ULTRA HEALTHY

Hyper Functional, Ultra Healthy is a programme of six newly commissioned artworks that respond to the idea of wellness, described as the optimization of mental and physical wellbeing.

Time and again we find we cannot measure up to impossible demands, frustrating ourselves. Those who do not or cannot conform to wellness culture risk the contempt of those on its tyrannical treadmill.

Hyper Functional, Ultra Healthy takes place during January and February 2020 to coincide with the final weeks of Somerset House’s landmark exhibition 24/7 and to quell pressures around any New Year’s resolutions. The programme asks us to reconsider well-being in new and unexpected ways, a refreshing antidote to the vast wellness industry that has fuelled societal pressures to conform, often creating an unrealistic and anxiety-inducing desire to be healthy, happy and productive.