About
What is The How Are You Project?
I created The How Are You Project because I struggled greatly responding to that question. I then spoke to other people with non-visible disabilities and discovered that they struggled too. The How Are You Project started life as simple one-to-one dialogues and has grown to be a methodology that seeks to shed light on the everyday experiences of the non-visibly disabled community when narrating their health to others. The project incorporates participatory theatre exercises with the performance of participants’ testimonies using headphone verbatim; and is an ever-growing community of voices who believe that with deeper and wider awareness of our experiences comes greater understanding.
The goal is to improve our everyday conversations of health in all communities, whether at work, at home or in social settings.
What's to come?
I am developing the project in a variety of directions:
Interactive Performances
Audience members engage directly with testimonies via headphone verbatim performers to learn about the many ‘versions’ of response there can be to the question “how are you?”
Talks and presentations
Sharing my learning and experience in educational and corporate settings. May involve participation!
Participatory workshops
Group sessions (in person or online) designed to explore the group’s collective experience and testimonial responses of navigating the question “how are you?”
Interactive online material
An accessible website where people can engage directly with a bank of testimonial material and leave their own testimonies and feedback.
Individual sessions
One to one sessions that focus closely on a person’s personal experience and testimonial responses of explaining their health to others.
Something else??
What do you think it could become? Get in touch to let me know.
Meet the artist
Laura Rees originally trained at the Royal Welsh College of Music and Drama and worked for 20 years as an actor with leading roles for the Royal Shakespeare Company, Shakespeare’s Globe Theatre and Royal National Theatre, as well as across television, film and radio.
She then completed an MA in Applied Theatre at Goldsmiths University and has since been developing her creative practice as a participatory theatre artist. Her work centres on challenging perceptions of non-visible disabilities and illness and this is greatly influenced by her own experience of living with multiple sclerosis.
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The How Are You Project is a methodology that encapsulates Laura’s creative vision for improving society’s awareness of the everyday experiences for people with non-visible disabilities. She was awarded a DYCP grant from the Arts council of England and went on to develop the project with Camden People's Theatre as a seed-comissioned artist. She was excited to collaborate with the Barbican in 2024 as a grantee recipient of the Imagine Fund. Laura continues to work closely with her colleague and friend, Neil Bartlett on the project.
