What Does Rest Really Mean?
Doctors prescribe it for recovery β but for some βrestingβ might involve boxing or making music: Claudia Hammond looks to the arts regarding what rest is and what itβs for.
Most of us would like more rest β but what exactly is it? Doctors tell us to put our feet up - but Claudia Hammond hears how a boxing poet and composer interpret rest.
Over the past two years sheβs been working at the Wellcome Collection in London as part of Hubbub β a group of artists, scientists and historians β examining the topic of rest. Hubbubβs leader, Professor Felicity Callard from Durham University, muses over restβs relationship to activity.
Some believe that life is a cycle between activity and passivity β rest always has to make you better at being active.
Dr Ayesha Nathoo from Exeter University studies how rest became a technical skill which needed to be taught in the early-twentieth century.
Composer Antonia Barnett-McIntosh wrote a piece for flautist Ilze Iks called βBreathβ β an exploration of the musical term βrestβ, when a musician pauses to inhale or exhale.
Novels often use activity to drive plot: rest has been largely neglected except in rare examples like Bartleby the Scrivener who decides to make rest a way of life.
Boxing poet Steve Fowler rests by sparring. He says his mind canβt rest until his body is tired out β and it makes him a nicer person.
(Photo caption: A man sleeps in a hammock close to the beach in the commune of Anse-a-Pitres, Haiti Β© HECTOR RETAMAL/AFP/Getty Images)
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