This artist’s grandma was a CIA guinea pig | CBC Radio
In a startling new performance piece, Sarah Anne Johnson reimagines her grandmother’s experience with the CIA’s secret MK Ultra program.
Q16:27Winnipeg Artist on her personal connection to notorious CIA mind-control experiments
They were subjected to LSD, sensory deprivation and shock therapy techniques. “Patients” of the CIA’s secret experiments Project MK-Ultra were a part of a dark chapter in Canadian history.
Artist Sarah Anne Johnson‘s grandmother — who sought treatment for postpartum depression before it was “a thing” — was one of the victims of the mind-control experiments.
In her new performance piece Hospital Hallway, Johnson tries to understand that horrific period of her grandmother’s life by re-imaging the conditions she endured and exposing her own emotional vulnerabilities.
The artist will be showing the exhibition this week in her home town of Winnipeg.
WEB EXTRA | For those who aren’t in Winnipeg, here is a virtual tour of the performance space.
