Masks, Face, Performance Identity in the Theatre of Surgery and Therapeutic EncounterProfessor Femi Oyebode (University of Birmingham)Dr Jan Parker (University of Cambridge)Emma Barnard (Artist)At a time of a seemingly one-dimensional concept of 'performative identity', a psychiatrist and a medical artist will challenge the performance of self in the theatre of surgery and therapeutic encounter. Emma Barnard - exhibition ‘Primum non Nocere’:An Artist’s Perspective into the World of Medicine - explores patients’ and surgeons’ faces/masks/presentations, Psychiatrist Prof Oyebode discusses the clinician’s multi varied responses to the disjunction between face icon & emotional expression. Together with Dr Jan Parker, Senior Member of the Faculties of Classics and English, and Chair of Arts and Humanities in Higher Education Research, these three interlocutors creatively and critically explore the performances of self in and outside of theatre.