The Suicide Chronicles

3rd Sep 2018

The Suicide Chronicles is a collaborative artistic project led by Mark Storor working with communities impacted by suicide, aiming to collectively find a language to articulate and explore the complex, layered experience of suicide.

Project Details

Creative Team

Artist: Mark Storor

'We don't have a language for suicide. What's peculiar about taboos and inhibitions is that they silence us.'

(Notes on Suicide, Simon Critchley, Fitzcarraldo Editions, 2015)

The Suicide Chronicles is an ongoing project emerging from Baa Baa Baric: Have You Any Pull? by Mark Storor with the communities of St Helens. It is a long-term artistic questioning of civilisation as our most brutal act of barbarism.

St Helens, which has one of the highest rates of suicide in the UK, is a town emblematic of a devastating national trend. But it could also be the town which is prepared to collectively take this on, to find a language and a model of practice that doesn’t exist in British society at the moment so that we may together address what is happening to our communities.

The conditions of late capitalism have dealt a damaging assault on what is important here and now, in terms of how people live, and how communities come together to nurture and support one another to lead emotionally, spiritually, psychologically, and philosophically healthy lives. Ultimately, The Suicide Chronicles asks: What is important? How are we responsible to each other? What kind of world do we want to live in? And how can we hold one another within it?

Each Chronicle takes focus on one individual story or one particular aspect of suicide ensuring that the work is sharp, vivid and truthful. In coming together, the collective Chronicles work in dialogue with each other, giving form to the infinitely complex and multi-layered nature of suicide.

The Suicide Chronicles

A woman dressed in a man's suit stands amongst broken crockery

Chronicle One: Grief

Suicide can be a very public death whilst simultaneously an intense private experience for those who grieve. In Chronicle One: Grief, three women reclaim this experience and give an audience public access to a private world.

Three people stand bent over and huddled together clinging on to a crumpled structure made of white paper. They all wear short sleeved, blue shirts and black trousers. They are pictured in an empty, disused swimming pool and are drenched in water.

Chronicle Two: Stand Firm Compassion

Chronicle Two: Stand Firm Compassion is made at a time where in society we cannot hide from the devastating effect of the systematic deconstruction of the caring society and the decimation of the caring professions through chronic underfunding.

Pete on the Full of Grace set. To the right the stage crew position lighting equipment around Pete.

Chronicle Three: Full of Grace

Full of Grace was been made by Pete Johnson with Mark Storor and a group of artists who have come together, each bringing their expertise and own experiences, to tell this story.

A bold man stood in a white room is covered in white powder. He holds a handful of blue thread that is hanging between the gaps in his fingers in one hand, and in the other is the spool of thread.

Chronicle Four: A Letter to Everyone I Love

How is it possible to go on when you haven't wanted to be here?

A group of people who are dressed all in white, are in a white room and throw white confetti in the air.

Chronicle Five: My Truth and Yours

Taking the form of a feature length film that has no discernible beginning, middle or end, My Truth and Yours is a poetic visual odyssey encapsulating the individual experiences of a community.

Listen

Reflections on a project working with survivors of bereavement by suicide, hosted by collaborator Angela Samata.

The Suicide Chronicles: Conversations

Care

A series of recorded conversations with the people who created The Suicide Chronicles project.

For more information about The Suicide Chronicles please contact emily@heartofglass.org.uk

Mark Storor

Lifelines

Samaritans: 116123 A safe place for you to talk anytime (24h, free)

Papyrus: 0800 068 41 41 Prevention of Young Suicide (free & confidential)

AMPARO: 0330 088 9255 Support for anyone affected by suspected or actual suicide

Shout: text 85258 The UK’s first text support for anyone in crisis, anywhere, anytime

The Suicide Chronicles has been produced in partnership with:

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A fair skinned woman with long blonde hair sits on the floor in a pile of dirt, she wears a pink silk slip. She has her back to us, with her legs out-stretched, her body is smeared black with dirt. She is surrounded by bottles of wine and wine glasses, many empty, some full.

Reflections on Chronicle One: Grief

Lyn Gardner speaks to artist Mark Storor on the making of the first part of 12 year project, The Suicide Chronicles.

A large projection screen sits amongst winter forest at dusk. The screen reflects a bright white image, turning its small audience into black silhouettes.

Reflections on Chronicle Two: Stand Firm Compassion

Writer Lyn Gardner reflects on Stand Firm Compassion and the film's ability to articulate experiences of grief and loss, as well as considering what it means to care for others in tragic circumstances.

The Suicide Chronicles: Conversations

Care

A series of recorded conversations with the people who created The Suicide Chronicles project.