Beautiful Distress, Aldo van den Broek in discussion w/ Wilco Tuinebreijer & Carlos Rodriguez Perez

Wednesday June 10
6:30pm (free and open to the public)
Residency Unlimited (RU)
360 Court Street (enter church building through main entrance)
Brooklyn, NY 11231

Join us for this evening talk where the Dutch artist Aldo van den Broek will discuss his residency experience at Kings County Hospital Center’s Behavioral Center (KCHC) as part of the Beautiful Distress (BD) program supported by RU. Fostered by the Beautiful Distress Foundation in Amsterdam, this unique residency initiative aims to de-stigmatize mental illness through artistic initiative in psychiatric settings. Guest speakers will include Wilco Tuinebreijer , founder of Beautiful Distress and Carlos Rodriguez Perez, Director of the Wellness and Recovery Division at the Behavioral Health Service, Kings County Hospital Center in Brooklyn.

“A psychiatric illness is not something you see. Because I am spending almost 24 hours a day in or around the hospital I am confronted with myself. To make art you have to look in a different or your own specific way to your situation. In the beginning I worked impulsively. I took some distance, listened to stories about people, the hospital and the G building that was broken down. I am constructing a G building that I never have seen, but which is based on all the impressions I am experiencing here…”Aldo van den Broek.

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The Beautiful Distress project is supported by the Mondriaan Foundation.

This program is supported, in part, by public funds from the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs in partnership with the City Council.

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Bios:
Aldo van den Broek began practicing painting in the city of Amsterdam in his early twenties. He was a squatter who was part of the Blitzkrieg collective. As a painter, he is known for his very large, multi-layered, outspoken paintings and collages. History, underground, punk and romanticism, architecture and people meet in his works.

Wilco Tuinebreijer is the founder of the Beautiful Distress initiative and a psychiatrist working in social and urban psychiatry in Amsterdam. He is medical director of the mental health department at the municipal health service Amsterdam. (GGD)

Carlos Rodriguez Perez is the Director of the Wellness and Recovery Division at the Behavioral Health Service, Kings County Hospital Center in Brooklyn. Carlos is a graduate from the NYU Drama Therapy program, and has been working as a Creative Arts Therapist in psychiatry for 21 years. He served at the board of the North American Drama Therapy Association (Treasurer and President), as well as the National Coalition of Creative Arts Therapies Association.