Carlota Matos’ research during Future Laboratory focused on identifying and removing barriers in the access to theatre and culture, understanding how mental ill-health and disability are perceived in different places, and investigating the democratisation of art.
 

Throughout the 2-week residencies, as well as having many one-on-one conversations, she explored how research methods themselves can be artistic. At Staatstheater Mainz (Germany), she led open workshops on the theme of belonging and how we can make theatre spaces more inclusive. At Teatrul Tineretului (Piatra Neamţ, Romania), where her research topics also included deinstitutionalisation and suicide awareness/prevention, Carlota invited the public to join her in the creative process and engage with the question “What are we not talking about that we should be talking about?”. In Reims (France), she was inspired by the work of the cultural centre La Boussole, where she ran a workshop with young people and another at a psychiatric hospital. She also experimented with performative approaches to presenting her findings in the Open Labs, using access as a creative tool.

 

Ultimately, her work highlighted the importance of working with those with lived experience and building systems of care for audiences, artists, and communities. Carlota grappled with the power dynamics between artists and institutions and the need to address the structural inequalities within these systems.

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The medicine given to honeybees contains a substance also found in antidepressants.

Towards the end of the project, Carlota started developing a piece that explores mental ill-health and collective systems of care through the lens of beekeeping. The work focuses on the idea of radical wellbeing, working with our needs rather than against. The performance invites everyone to come as they are. It changes based on how Carlota and the performers are feeling on the day, and offers the audience a chance to rest on stage.