Become part of our latest installation, SICK by Sarah Roberts.

Resonating with the themes of SICK, this intervention will allow you to create your own moment of memorial to those lost through terminal illness.

Matthews references the HIV crisis through this intervention, in tandem with his performance forest of the (dance) floor. lay still, here also references the 1994 performance piece Still/Here, created by Bill T. Jones during the AIDS epidemic.

Scan the QR code in The Stanley & Audrey Burton Gallery, or follow this link, to access a Spotify playlist created by Christopher Matthews. You are then invited to lie on the floor in the exhibition, or wherever you may be, and listen to the specially chosen tracks, all of which were all created as a joyful retaliation against the scapegoating and stigma surrounding the HIV crisis.

Through the radical act of staying still, Matthews hopes to spark conversations around grief and visibility of sickness.

Christopher Matthews - Biography

Christopher Matthews is an award winning American-born choreographer, performer and visual artist working from London. Matthews holds a BFA from New York University Tisch School of the Arts and an MA in Choreography from Trinity Laban. His video and performance works have been presented internationally, including at the Victoria & Albert Museum, Sadler’s Wells, Art Night 2018, Yorkshire Dance, Enclave Gallery, Arbyte Gallery, ]performance space[, Chisenhale Dance Space, MonArt Digital Art, CollectArt, LimaZulu, 4BID Gallery, Mount Florida Gallery, Castlefield Gallery, Prism Contemporary, Millennium, Reykjavik Dance Festival, Cent Quatre, MCLA Gallery 51, Villa Empain, Loop Video Art Festival, and was named a 2024 Blue Chip Finalist. As a performer, Matthews works with Trajal Harrell on his national and international presentations. He is a dancer in the Oscar-winning blockbuster Wicked directed by John Chu, and the upcoming film The Magic Faraway Tree.

SICK is supported by the Henry Moore Foundation.