The Devil’s Pool

Is there a connection between creativity and madness? Does being creative involve a risk of madness or is madness a prerequisite for creativity?

In this, her debut documentary project, artist Cecily Brennan addresses the long-held public belief in a connection between madness and artistic creativity, combining a dramatised section with interviews with artists, researchers and academics. These interwoven strands contrast the chaos and torment of mental collapse with the careful rationality of psychiatric research and the views of working artists.

Interviewees include Dr. Simon Kyaga from the Karolinska Institutet in Stockholm, Professor Patricia Waugh of Durham University, the playwright Frank McGuinness and the poet Paul Muldoon.