SMHAF Podcast

Invisible M*ther is a collaborative piece by Rebecca Livesey-Wright and Indra Wilson, commissioned by the Mental Health Foundation for the 2024 Scottish Mental Health Arts Festival. The piece uses polyvocal writing techniques to to visibilise hidden maternal narratives whilst affording an element of anonymity important for preserving a safe space for both ourselves and those who are adjacent to ou...

Wax and Wane is a vocal exploration of the shifting nature of tics within the body, transforming from physical motion to vocal expressions, varying in complexity and intensity throughout the artist's life. Tics, particularly those linked with Tourette's, often diminish or become less visible at certain times of day or during different life stages. Stress can exacerbate them, while at other times,...

Sit Still is a choral composition for four voices that delves into society's assumption that stillness comes naturally. It challenges the notion that movement—such as fidgeting or wriggling—is a sign of disengagement, immaturity, or misbehavior. The work draws on the artist’s reflections on her own self-criticism for struggling to achieve stillness, especially in moments when it feels most necessa...

Flutter explores the constant interruption of Tourette’s to everyday life, through small sounds as well as the shame which can be experienced when experiencing tics. A collection of erratic, arhythmic voclisations are counterbalanced by soothing lullaby-esque humming, exploring both shame and empathy. Fragments of spoken word explore the complexities of this condition alongside public perception....

Premonitory Urges is a sonic exploration of the sensation experienced by Tourette’s sufferers which is an overwhelming sensation to perform a tic, an experience similar to the urge to blink. This work uses sound and voice to express this buildup and release. It also uses sine and saw waves to act as a grounding solace providing a drone underneath the vocals. Other sounds include groans and also vo...

Two of the big events at the 2024 Scottish Mental Health Arts Festival are Men Don’t Talk, a play written by Clare Prenton which tours Scotland from 18 November, and Silent Men, a documentary by film-maker Duncan Cowles which is screening as part of our Film Awards programme at the CCA in Glasgow before touring to cinemas across Scotland. Both set out to explore why men can be so reluctant to talk...

Performing Anxiety: Nye Russell Thompson interview by Scottish Mental Health Arts Festival

Reflecting light and stillness, and the process of creativity and the essential part this can play in all of our wellbeing. Some Revolutions are ongoing, peaceful, and very quiet. This track is by Talking Heads volunteer Paul Duncan, composed in response to the exhibition Photography Revolution by Dundee-based mental health charity Wellbeing Works. Paul is a classically trained musician who is cur...

Listen to this podcast by Talking Heads volunteer Kirsty Ann-Watters, featuring an interview with koi collective members Sally MacAlister, Grace Baker, Zara Louise Kennedy, and Evie Mortimer about their new play Hysterical!. Commissioned by Live Borders for the Scottish Mental Health Arts Festival, Hysterical! is a free fall through a categorically inaccurate history of mad women, based on real wo...

As part of the Scottish Mental Health Arts Festival, the University of Glasgow hosted Rebirth and Revolution: the Life and Legacy of Mary Barnes to mark the artist and mental health campaigner’s centenary year. At the launch of the exhibition, a panel of experts gave a series of talks to contextualise her journey in art and recovery, from its beginnings at R.D. Laing’s controversial therapeutic co...

The past few years have seen a huge increase in the number of artistic projects, from theatre and film to comedy, that explicitly address mental health. Often these projects involve the artists sharing their own traumatic experiences. In our second Mental Health Arts Network gathering, recorded in March 2022, we explore how we use the arts to explore mental health while safeguarding the mental hea...

Short - Ruth D by Scottish Mental Health Arts Festival

Clay - Anne by Scottish Mental Health Arts Festival

Circus Skills - Isabel by Scottish Mental Health Arts Festival

Art-Making As Self-Expression - Jan-Bert by Scottish Mental Health Arts Festival

Reclaiming Our Heritage is a Mental Health Foundation podcast inspired by its two-year oral history project supported by the National Lottery Heritage Fund. The project’s aim is to record and preserve the spoken testimonies of the mental health community between the 1950s and early 2000s. Each episode will explore themes that have come out of these spoken testimonies, and these will be further dis...

This is Reclaiming Our Heritage, a Mental Health Foundation podcast inspired by its two-year oral history project supported by the National Lottery Heritage Fund. The project’s aim is to record and preserve the spoken testimonies of the mental health community between the 1950s and early 2000s. The full interviews by these contributors and others are available in the Reclaiming Our Heritage archiv...

Content Note: Features discussion of suicidal ideation. Reclaiming Our Heritage is a Mental Health Foundation podcast inspired by its two-year oral history project supported by the National Lottery Heritage Fund. The project’s aim is to record and preserve the spoken testimonies of the mental health community between the 1950s and early 2000s. Each episode will explore themes that have come out of...

This is Reclaiming Our Heritage, a Mental Health Foundation podcast inspired by its two-year oral history project supported by the National Lottery Heritage Fund. The project’s aim is to record and preserve the spoken testimonies of the mental health community between the 1950s and early 2000s. The full interviews by these contributors and others are available in the Reclaiming Our Heritage archiv...

Art can be a powerful way of addressing the difficult subject of suicide, but how can it be done without sensationalising, stigmatising or triggering? This is a recording of a discussion event that took place on 23 February 2022, hosted by the Mental Health Foundation as part of its new Mental Health Art Network programme, supported by the Baring Foundation. Taking part in the discussion were: Mar...

Content Warning: Features discussion of suicidal ideation This is Reclaiming Our Heritage, a Mental Health Foundation podcast inspired by its two-year oral history project supported by the National Lottery Heritage Fund. The project’s aim is to record and preserve the spoken testimonies of the mental health community between the 1950s and early 2000s. The full interviews by these contributors and...

This is Reclaiming Our Heritage, a Mental Health Foundation podcast inspired by its two-year oral history project supported by the National Lottery Heritage Fund. The project’s aim is to record and preserve the spoken testimonies of the mental health community between the 1950s and early 2000s. The full interviews by these contributors and others are available in the Reclaiming Our Heritage archiv...

Brian by Scottish Mental Health Arts Festival

Photographer and writer Nikki Kilburn is interested in exploring “how identity and lived experience creates complex realities”. Nikki was commissioned as part of the Scottish Mental Health Arts Festival's My Normality project to create a collection of “five empowered portraits of women of colour with a lived experience of racialised trauma” accompanied by an audio narrative of their voices telling...

In this episode of Mind Matters, Michael McEwan speaks to writers Sasha Greene, the Scottish author of Something Like Happy which explores mental health, and Angela McCrimmon, author of Can You Hear Me Now?: Finding My Voice in a System that Stole It, about writing and mental health.