Matt Stokes: Dead Sea Deaf Sea

Dead Sea Deaf Sea is an exhibition of new film, sculpture and photography by Matt Stokes predominantly derived from his research into HMS Standard, an experimental World War II psychiatric rehabilitation camp established by the Royal Navy to find an answer to rising mental illness and insubordination in its ranks. The camp had a duplicitous role: to treat those traumatised by life in active service and to weed out ‘malingerers’ feigning psychosis to escape service. The work shown follows on from Stone Frigate, a LARP (Live Action Role Play) conceived and written by Stokes (commissioned by Kielder Art & Architecture) that took place near the original, now flooded, site of HMS Standard in the Tyne Valley, Northumberland.