We are excited to be launching a new two year programme focussing on art, displacement and mental health. This new strand of work builds on the findings of a report we published last year, titled Creatively Minded and Refugees, commissioned by The Baring Foundation as part of their “Creatively Minded” series.
Given the challenging and complex realities many of our artists and communities have had to navigate, mental health has normally been implicit in our projects; from being forced to leave one’s homeland and losing one’s community to navigating a convoluted asylum system and being welcomed by a ‘hostile environment’, these factors can inevitably have compounding, and often harmful effects on anyone’s mental health and wellbeing.
Over the course of the next two years, we plan to put the conversation of mental health at the heart of our activity and programming. Our upcoming activities will be centered around three key areas:
- Networking, to connect people and organisations across the arts and refugee sectors
to collaborate and share learning - Creative programming, to develop new projects and creative programmes in public and mainstream settings to promote better understanding of related experiences and reach wider audiences
- Developing a shared language & evaluation frameworks, to find common terms and approaches that can help connect this work with the mental health and creative well-being sectors
If you are interested in finding out more or if you are an artist working on and developing projects exploring mental health and wellbeing, we would love for you to get in touch with us at hello@counterpoints.org.uk.
Image © Marcia Chandra
