a world in a sauna
I'm doing a residency in a sauna + 'I HATE SOCIAL MEDIA'
Throughout June I’ve been invited to be artist in residence at Brighton sauna Yo Yo Yard. As a regular sauna-goer, this is definitely one of those moments when seemingly unrelated interested collide, and I’m really looking forward to exploring my love for sauna-ing through my creative practice.
Yo-Yo Yard is a relatively new sauna in the centre of town, surrounded by artist studios, and has become the one I visit the most regularly. So I was really overwhelmed and touched to be asked if I would be their first sauna artist in residence.
I’ll be working in the space throughout the month, responding to my own sensory sauna experiences using sound, digital experiments, drawing and writing. I’ll also be inviting sauna guests to contribute with their own responses.
Only recently I was thinking of going a bit off-road on this substack and just doing a post all about my transformational sauna relationship. For around a year now I have been regularly engaging in hot+cold therapy- up to once a week if I can afford it. In Brighton we are spoilt for choice, with affordable community saunas popping up all over the place. Regular sauna-ing is embedded into many cultures, so it’s great to see it taking off in such a big way here.
Since starting to sauna regularly my overall mental health has massively improved, as has my ability to feel connected with my own body and it’s needs- something I often struggle with as an Autistic person. My stress levels are a factor in flare ups of my chronic health condition, so managing my sensory input through controlled immersion in heat and cold really helps. I also love the ritual aspect of it.
As I began thinking about how to approach this residency in a thematic way I’ve been really enjoying artist/activist Cassie Thornton aka
’s writing about ‘Crisis Care Yoga’:“[becoming] a yoga teacher who antagonistically taught feminist economics in corporate yoga studios and art spaces to upset and unstuck the rich white self helpers.”
(Thornton also started The Hologram, a fascinating and truly unique thing that exists in the world.)
I’d love to use this residency to worldbuild and explore speculative futures/alternative dimensions through heat, slowness and communal creativity. Can we imagine new worlds whilst in the sauna together?
Speaking of worldbuilding, I took a short trip up to London to the Art Research Garden for a workshop organised by the
Society for Gardening Companions, who I’ve been enjoying the online existence of for some time, so took the opportunity to meet them IRL. We played a TTRPG together called The Quiet Year, where you rebuild the world following a non-specified apocalypse. I’ve never really been one for TTRPG’s tbh but this was excellent, and I’m looking forward to trying out ‘The Deep Forest’ which was created by the same person after ‘The Quiet Year’. You can download it from the artist here.
I met some lovely new people and it was a real joy to spend an afternoon in a lush garden, collectively imagining worlds together. On the way home I saw a big London rat, which hasn’t happened in ages, so I saw it as some sort of sign. But what of?
Get involved with my sauna residency.
If you want to come along to the sauna you can book a session here. It’s lovely, I really recommend it.
I’m planning on being at the sauna at mostly off-peak times on Monday, Tuesdays and some Fridays sauna-ing, drawing, recording, writing and offering small creative prompts to guests whilst I am there. If you specifically want to come for a sauna when I’m there, do drop me an email (kateshieldsart@gmail.com) or hit the button below and I can let you know the best time to drop by.
I’ll be doing residency updates through my instagram of course, so do follow me there if you like. There will some kind of sharing/closing event at the end of June- I’m not sure what shape this will take yet, but I’ll send out an update here and on my insta when I have more details.
I HATE SOCIAL MEDIA: a new comms mailout!
I’ve mentioned a few times in this substack that I work in Comms/Social Media/Digital Marketing part-time and freelance as a way to pay the bills alongside my creative practice.
As I’ve been doing this a long time, and mostly with small businesses, arts orgs, charities and other freelancers, I’ve picked up a lot of skills and experience running social media accounts (and usually with limited resources!).
So today I launched I HATE SOCIAL MEDIA just to share the knowledge I’ve gathered over the years in the hope you can spend less time wrangling your socials. If you’d like to sign up to receive these bitesize advice, hacks, links and resources to your inbox once a month, you can sign up here! :)
Camp Kindred: a queer gathering
On 4-6 July I’m taking part in a small, grassroots, queer gathering in the woods of East Sussex. Camp Kindred is looking to be a truly radical weekend of music, art and wellness stuff ofc (there will be a sauna with sound baths!) and all run as a non-profit by queers for queers. No brands- imagine!!
I’m creating something very exciting for the festival which I don’t want to spoil just yet, sooo just…book a ticket to come along and camp for the weekend.
