Key partners include:
The Sick of the Fringe (TSOTF) was co-founded in 2015 by STAF’s Founding Creative Director/CEO Tracy Gentles and artist Brian Lobel through commissioning from Wellcome.
TSOTF is a strategy, an ethos and a community, which makes the world safe (or safer) for challenging art and challenging realities.
The challenges we are particularly interested in fighting are inequality, inaccessibility, elitism and mediocrity.
We fight on behalf of artists, audiences and the public good.
Originally a support programme for artists around the Edinburgh Fringe, TSOTF has since grown into STAF’s international commissioning, writing and festivals programme, aimed at celebrating the body, its problems and its potential.
Take a look below for a snapshot of our previous commissions and a selection of feature videos from presented artists - some of the most exciting and pressing voices looking at health and social justice.
This performance from a powerful, yet necessarily unseen, artist reflects on the W*rk Cap*bility Ass*ssment process. Performed with a shrewd deconstruction of the way in which being ‘fit and capable for work’ is defined within the confines of the current system, AUSTERITY CU TS questions what society would be like if ‘difference’ was regarded as something positive rather than unworthy.
Commissioned for TSOTF London 2017, with subsequent presentations at Adelaide Fringe and Latitude Festival. This piece is now part of the Wellcome Collection’s permanent Being Human exhibition.
WE ARE THE LATEST MODELS OF OUR ANCESTRY // BUSTY BEATZ (Black Honey Company)
When an object is found by one but taken from another, what is the impact? Not only at the time it was taken but for generations to come? Busty Beatz of Hot Brown Honey is on a mission to deconstruct, dissect and shake the foundations of the past by artistically re-imagining history into Herstory.
Collaborating with artists, academics and researchers from across worlds, disciplines and experiences, We are the Latest Models of our Ancestry sets out to challenge the perceptions of ‘museum objects’.
Through redefining and reshaping the impact of being taken from and giving voice to the intersections of race, culture and gender empowerment of our contemporary selves.
This multi media installation featuring video, recorded and live sound commissioned for The Sick of the Fringe, accompanies Medicine Man, a permanent exhibition at Wellcome Collection.
Co-commissioned with Wellcome Collection for TSOTF London 2017.
AGEING DISGRACEFULLY // LYNN RUTH MILLER
Lynn Ruth Miller started doing comedy on stage aged 71. She was dubbed 'the new Joan Rivers of Fringe Comedy' at the Edinburgh Fringe. Now 83, she has accumulated numerous awards and is the oldest performing female stand up comedian in the UK. Those who are older can no longer stand up.
In hopes of understanding why and how we find different things funny at different ages, Lynn Ruth Miller curates and hosts a programme of stand up from all ages, featuring some of the UKs top comedians.
Commissioned for TSOTF London 2017 with a subsequent performance at Latitude Festival.
I TRIED TO FUCK UP THE SYSTEM BUT NONE OF MY FRIENDS TEXTED BACK // TRAVIS ALABANZA
Sat on the tube wondering if the person next to me wants to cry as well. In a Dr's office and wondering who else feels perpetually lonely. At a rally screaming slogans and wondering if anyone knows how to hug.
I Tried To Fuck Up The System But None Of My Friends Texted Back is a new piece of experimental performance work by Travis Alabanza, looking at the ways in which intimacy has been left out of our political discourse. 'I Tried To...' places the audience into Alabanza's internal dialogue and waits for the moment where they decide to join in, asking "can we really change the world if we are still afraid of everyone we do not know?". Exploring loneliness, intimacy, and the secrets you didn't think you would say out loud - 'I tried to fuck up the system but none of my friends texted back ', is Alabanza trying to figure it out, knowing that they cannot do it alone.
Sound design by Danielle Brathwaite Shirley.
Co-commissioned with Wellcome Collection for TSOTF Care and Destruction 2019.
ORAL // VIV GORDON
ORAL is a show about mouths. What goes into them. What comes out of them. And what they are actually for. Based on her lived experience, Viv Gordon and company sink their teeth into childhood sexual abuse, dentistry and crocodiles. ORAL is a rebellious gobby kind of show about rising up and biting back. A jaw dropping call to arms.
Co-commissioned with Strike A Light for TSOTF Care and Destruction 2019.
#UKDRILLPROJECT// HIGHRISE THEATRE
With violent crimes involving inner-city young people rising over the last 3 years, UK Drill Music has been blamed both by politicians and the media as the cause for this spike. In the meantime, young people’s services are continuing to be cut, gentrification is forcing families apart and a rise in racism both structurally and on the streets leaves young people of colour disillusioned, lacking role models and turning to crime to support themselves.
Commissioned for TSOTF Care and Destruction 2019.
ANTIBIOTIC APOCALYPSE // BOURGEOIS & MAURICE
Critically acclaimed musical satirists Bourgeois & Maurice take us on an anarchic journey into a post-truth, post-health, post-medicinal world, when antibiotics are over and gonorrhoea is king.
Working with academics and experts in the field of infection, Bourgeois & Maurice have created a response to the global threat of drug-resistant infections, viewed through their lens of genderqueer alien detachment.
What happens when two alien freakazoids with no moral compass and a flagrant disregard for truth are let loose in Wellcome Collection’s corridors of science and facts and important medical things?
Co-commissioned with Wellcome Collection for TSOTF London 2017.
AS FAR AS ISOLATION GOES // TANIA EL KHOURY & BASEL ZARAA
As Far As Isolation Goes is a collaboration between live artist Tania El Khoury and musician and street artist Basel Zaraa. Built on their previous collaboration entitled As Far As My Fingertips Take Me in which El Khoury commissioned Zaraa to record a rap song inspired by the journey his sisters made from Damascus to Sweden. In As Far As Isolation Goes, Zaraa and Tania worked together to create another iteration of their previous piece focused on mental and physical health experiences of refugees in the United Kingdom. Zaraa created a song inspired by conversations with friends and colleagues who have recently claimed refuge in UK. As Far As Isolation Goes uses touch, sound, and interactivity to bring audience members in contact with those faced with inhumane detention centres and a mental health system that disregard their political and emotional contexts.
Co-commissioned with Wellcome Collection for TSOTF Care and Destruction 2019.
DADDERS & THE RONG TABLE // FRAUKE REQUARDT & DANIEL OLIVER
Daniel is dyspraxic and is too slow. Frauke has ADHD and is too quick. They are married and have kids. This performance is rooted in their experiences of their bodies as neurodivergent lovers, parents, and weirdo performance makers.
The performance is directly followed by a participatory ‘Rong Table’ event, raising questions around family, fidelity, monogamy, and being experimental performance makers onstage.
Co-commissioned with The Place and Take Me Somewhere for TSOTF Care and Destruction 2019.
WE’RE ALL GOING TO DIE! // KATHRYN MANNIX & CLAIRE NOLAN
Dying is a modern taboo. And yet death is offered as entertainment in films, video-games and TV. We love ‘pretend’ death. We just don’t want to think about real dying. How does that misinformation affect our ability to discuss real death, to prepare for deaths of our dear ones – and even the end of our own lives?
Doctor Kathryn Mannix, who knows real dying from a career in palliative care, wants to explore our fascination with death. Using examples from the world of dying-as-entertainment, join her as she looks at the gap between art and reality, and test your own fears and assumptions.
Commissioned for TSOTF London 2017.
