Mere Mortals

Overview

Death is coming to Arts House in North Melbourne, courtesy of nine new works about grief, mortality and what lies beyond. Get your affairs in order, because from November 7 to December 3, local and international artists working in theatre, live art, music and more are taking audiences six feet under.

In While You Sleep, musicians will perform alongside live action and animated video footage, transporting viewers into a fugue state where nothing is quite what it seems. In Supper Club: The C-Word, guests will join artists, medical practitioners and cancer survivors for a discussion about the disease over dinner. And in The Infirmary, audience members submit themselves to the care of someone else in an immersive, hospital-set artwork unlike any other.

Other events in the Mere Mortals program include Daniel Jenatsch's video installation A Mysterious Illness, Lara Thoms' The Director starring a veteran ex-funeral director, and the latest production from UK theatre company Ridiculusmus, the grimly titled Die! Die! Die! Old People Die! If nothing else, it's on theme.

Outside of Arts House, in the Royal Botanic Gardens, you'll be able to visit an interactive installation called Public Cooling House and borrow headphones to listen to the evocative audio piece Bushland.

Images: The Infirmary, Triage Live Art Collective, photo by Sarah Walker; While You Sleep: a fugue, Kate Neal and Sal Cooper.