Aidan Moesby in conversation with Prof. Thomas Dixon: ‘I was Naked Smelling of Rain’

Image courtesy & copyright Aidan Moesby, I was Naked Smelling of Rain.

In this moment we have been working with commissioned artists to rethink and reimagine how their contribution to the Lincoln Live Season can be revised and reimagined; how new work can be shared and enjoyed together with audiences in a safe, virtual, domestic and necessarily personal environment.

This event will take place live using Zoom, a free online video chat service. For security reasons, booking via Eventbrite is essential and a hyperlink that will take you to the event will be shared with attendees via Eventbrite email 1hr before the event start time.

This event will be BSL interpreted.

How does the weather affect your emotions? How might this change with the influence of climate change? A conversation with artist Aidan Moesby and Professor Thomas Dixon, followed by the screening of a BSL interpreted version of I was naked, smelling of rain – a performance piece exploring the impact of the external physical and social weather on our internal mental health and wellbeing. In the midst of the climate change and mental health crises, Aidan proposes that we’re the most connected ‘on-demand’ generation, yet we seem to have lost touch with who we are and where we fit in the world. 

Aidan Moesby’s work, as curator and artist, is situated at the intersection of climate change, wellbeing and technology. Concerned with the weather as a metaphor, both the real ‘physical weather’ we experience and our ‘internal psycho-emotional weather’, Moesby has worked, exhibited and curated nationally and internationally working with partners such as MIMA, DASH, Dundee Contemporary Arts, New Media Scotland, ANAT (AUS), Jadråss Art (SWE), Culture for All (SUO) and PMStudio Watershed.

Prof. Thomas Dixon is Professor of History at Queen Mary University of London, where he leads a collaborative Wellcome Trust research project entitled “Living With Feeling: Emotional Health in History, Philosophy and Experience”. The project has worked with primary schools to pilot a new approach to thinking about feelings in the classroom, called Developing Emotions. In 2020 the ‘Sound of Anger’ podcast, hosted by Thomas, won gold in two categories at the British Podcast Awards. Thomas’s books include From Passions to Emotions (2003) and Weeping Britannia: Portrait of a Nation in Tears (2015). Later this year he will be presenting A Short History of Solitude on BBC Radio 4, and in 2019 he gave the BBC Radio 3 Free Thinking lecture on “Feelings, and feelings, and feelings.” The work of the Living With Feeling project is showcased on The Emotions Lab website. 

This event is delivered by independent curator and researcher Linda Rocco as part of a wider programme marking 200 years since Antarctica was first sighted. Celsius forms part of Mansions of the Future’s Lincoln Live season and Antarctica In Sight – a UK wide cultural programme of activity supported by the UK Antarctica Heritage Trust. This series of talks, workshops and performance will explore the groundbreaking intersections of arts and STEM subjects with a focus on climate change and the uniquely precarious position of Antarctica in today’s sociopolitical climate. The week long programme will feature contributions from artists Rhine BernardinoLula MebrahtuAidan Moesby and Josefina Nelimarkka.


This project is part of Mansions of the Future’s Lincoln Live programme March – September 2020 (Season extended in response to COVID-19). Departing from Lincoln’s rich entertainment and theatre history, Lincoln Live features new commissions which exist at the intersections of disciplinary boundaries. The season is a celebration of performative ventures that stand resolutely marginal to both the history of English theatre and the often exclusive, disciplinary rhetoric of contemporary performance art.

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