Timed to coincide with The Courtauld Gallery current exhibition Henri Michaux: The Mescaline Drawings, this Study Day aims to investigate Henri Michaux’s approach to the use of psychedelics, and reveal how they transformed his artistic creativity, and how this coincided with advances in medical research in the use of psychedelics.
Bringing together art historians and researchers in the field of medical psychedelics, this interdisciplinary study day will explore the practice of art therapy alongside findings from research into psychedelics as treatments for psychiatric disorders, with the scope to provide a platform for a dialogue between these two fields.
Organised by Dr Ketty Gottardo, Martin Halusa Senior Curator of Drawings, The Courtauld, in partnership with Catherine Bird and the Institute of Psychiatry, Psychology & Neuroscience (IoPPN) of King’s College London.
Participants:
Catherine Bird is a Senior Clinical Trials Manager at The Psychoactive Trials Group (PTG), King’s College London. After completing a masters in Cognitive Neuroscience at University College London, Catherine joined The PTG in 2018 as a research assistant. Since, she has coordinated multiple clinical trials within an NHS research setting; all investigating the use of psychedelics and related compounds as therapies for different health conditions. She is currently completing her PhD exploring the anxiolytic effects of cannabis based medicinal products.
Matthew Butler is a specialist registrar in psychiatry and a doctoral clinical research fellow. He has several years’ experience working as a study doctor on clinical trials of psychedelics for a range of neuropsychiatric disorders. He is currently based at the Institute of Psychiatry, Psychology and Neuroscience undertaking a neuroimaging study, funded by the Wellcome Trust, of psilocybin assisted psychotherapy in functional neurological disorder.
Oliver Davis is Professor of French at University College Cork and Co-Editor of the Frontiers in Psychology series in the psychedelic humanities. He has published on psychedelic self-experimentation by Henri Michaux and on the conceptualisation of autonomy in psychedelically-assisted psychotherapy and has just completed a book on the political ramifications of the ongoing ‘psychedelic renaissance’. In March 2024 he organised the first research day on the psychedelic humanities in Ireland and he is a member of the Drug Science Medical Psychedelics Working Group. He is currently working on a history of French thought over the last four decades, among other projects.
Amadeus Harte is a PhD student in anthropology at Princeton University. She works with cultural psychology, philosophy, and neuroscience to understand how medicalized psychedelics impact the sense of Self, Meaning, and Value in participants on clinical trials.
Franck Leibovici is responsible for the Henri Michaux Archives, in Paris. With Micheline Phankim and Rainer Michael Mason, he has been working on the catalogue raisonné of Henri Michaux since 2001. His book, Henri Michaux : voir – une enquête (2014), is an introduction to the catalogue raisonné and its methodological problems.
Nina Parish is Professor of French and Francophone Studies and Head of the Division of Literature & Languages at the University of Stirling. Much of her current research is in Memory Studies with a focus on representations of difficult history, the migrant experience and multilingualism in the museum. But she is also an expert on the interaction between text and image in the field of modern and contemporary French Studies and has published widely on this subject, in particular, on the poet and visual artist, Henri Michaux. Her PhD thesis and first monograph was on his experimentation with signs.
Muriel Pic is a freelance researcher, writer, filmmaker, who has taught at Universities in France, Germany and Switzerland. Her work explores the connections that take shape between thought and poetry, document and fiction, science and art, imagination and knowledge. This has yielded a body of work that combines poetry, documentary narratives, lyrical essays, and texts formed from archival materials. She has published extensively, notably on Henri Michaux, Rosa Luxemburg, and W. G. Sebald, and has received several awards for her literary work.
Vanessa Tothill is the Curator of Transhistorical Narratives at the Sainsbury Centre. Her current exhibition titled Eyewitness will open in September 2025 as part of the ‘Can We Stop Killing Each Other?’ season. Vanessa has curated a variety of exhibitions, including Power Plants: Intoxicants, Stimulants and Narcotics(2024), Julian Stair: Art, Death and the Afterlife (2023), Scottish Women Artists: Transforming Tradition (2022). She was the Sainsbury Centre curator of the touring exhibition Ayahuasca & Art of the Amazon, and editor of Why Do We Take Drugs? (2024) and Planet For Our Future (2023) publications. Vanessa studied Ceramic Design and East Asian Art History in London, completing her doctorate in Japanese Art History at Ritsumeikan University in Kyoto in 2018.
Katie Turnbull is a registered Art Psychotherapist. She works psychodynamically with a trauma informed approach. She has a history of working with adults in the healthcare industry, community and care sector and with children and adolescents. Her background includes artistic facilitation, working with communities and an ongoing arts practice.
