Comprehensive programme starts in October

Scotland's Mental Health Arts Festival, led by the Mental Health Foundation, has launched its full 2024 programme, with events happening across Scotland from 10-27 October.  

The 2024 theme is In/Visible, which looks at what it means to be ‘visible’ or ‘invisible’ when thinking about our mental health.

The diverse multi-artform programme includes over 220 events, taking place from Orkney to Dumfries, and Lewis to Edinburgh. Highlights of this year’s programme include:

This year’s SMHAF is reaching further across Scotland than ever; our annual Writing Awards (24 Oct) will take place in Dundee for the first time, while a new targeted small grants programme has resulted in events in an even wider variety of communities across Scotland.

As always, our theme – collectively chosen by festival co-ordinators from across Scotland – is full of creative possibilities. Reflecting the festival’s grassroots approach, community groups and community-focused organisations will bring their own creativity to exploring the theme through music, film, theatre, art and other events. Highlights from the regional programme include:

Now You See Us (Glasgow, 25 & 26 Oct), a special two-day showcase of artist commissions, creative workshops, vital discussions, film screenings and more. Premieres of new work examining mental health in innovative ways includes collective healing experience, Broken Silences, led by musician and poet Simone Seales; self-defined schizospectrum playwright Jen McGregor’s new work in progress Hallucinogen; and Sanjay Lago’s use of poetry, comedy storytelling, and Bollywood dance to raise the visibility of queer South Asian mental health in Floating Along Silently. 

A special focus on men’s mental health includes a nationwide tour of Men Don’t Talk (18 Oct – 23 Nov), a new play by Clare Prenton made in collaboration with the Scottish Men’s Shed Association; preview screenings of Duncan Cowles’ feature documentary Silent Men (19–24 Oct) which takes us on a journey through male mental health, stigma and taboo; and TALK. Portraits (10–24 Oct), Graham Williams’ interactive outdoor photography trail across Edinburgh which aims to encourage men to talk about their mental health. 

The return of SMHAF’s International Film Awards and film programme (Glasgow, 16–19 Oct) after a year’s absence. Winning films will be celebrated across categories such as personal narrative, human rights and experimental, selected from a record-breaking 400 submissions.

Exhibition Our Power (10 Oct – 31 Dec), the culmination of a Mental Health Foundation project, launches at Glasgow’s Gallery of Modern Art. This display of visual art was created by people with lived experience of racist microaggressions to explore the impacts it has on their mental health.

Thrive for a Day (10 Oct), a brand new one-day takeover of Edinburgh’s Leith Arches for World Mental Health Day. From a sea shanty singing workshop to the performance of a play written collaboratively with Scottish prisoners, this dynamic programme showcases the range of wellbeing work done by organisations across Edinburgh.

Out of Sight Out of Mind (9–27 Oct), the biggest mental health themed group art exhibition in Scotland with a massive 365 artists participating this year, over three floors of Summerhall in Edinburgh.

Additionally events will include:

• Scottish rapper and social commentator Darren McGarvey and Peers of North Ayrshire Wellbeing & Recovery Collegeteam up for To Tell or Not to Tell (Irvine, 15 Oct), exploring the value and challenge of sharing a traumatic lived experience publicly.
• Spellbinding multimedia performance Held on the High Wire (Lairg, Inverness & Fort William, 12, 13 & 26 Oct) merges the story of Jenny Q's near-death experience and new life on metal legs with Myshkin Warbler's haunting Folk/Jazz music. 
• Multi-layered event, Discovering Hartwood (Shotts, 19 Oct), shares stories about the history of a former psychiatric hospital in Hartwood, through storytelling, song, film, drama workshops and an exhibition.
• Audience members are invited to walk in the Invisible Footsteps (Paisley, 16 & 19 Oct)of Robert Tannahill in an interactive walk, including poetry recitals and music, which takes in the key places in the Paisley poet’s life and works.
• Shed (Melrose, 9 Oct) is a brand-new project from Northern Rascals that uses visual art, spoken word and performance to raise awareness of the issues young people face with their mental health.   
• Historically, the mental health of people with learning disabilities has often been overlooked. Stop Being In/Visible (Aberdeen, 11–24 Oct), an exhibition by artists with learning disabilities exploring what mental health means to them, aims to put the subject centre stage.

The festival has also commissioned five artists to create new works, responding to the ‘In/Visible’ theme. The commissioned work will be shared on mhfestival.com and at live events during the festival. Details of the successful artists and their exciting new works are:

• Deborah Shaw (aka Aurora Engine) will create an electronic-infused choral suite inspired by her experiences with Tourette's syndrome.
• Meray Diner will create a moving image film drawing on interviews with people from migrant backgrounds and conflict zones, exploring how news events can trigger them in a way that is unspoken and invisible.
• Ritu Arya will create a sculptural installation consisting of 'inside-like’ bodily shapes to visualise the impact of trauma.
• Rebecca Livesey-Wright and Indra Wilson will collaborate on a process of polyvocal writing, drawing on their experiences of pregnancy.
• Sarah Forrest will create a short film in collaboration with her 15-year-old nephew about his experience of ADHD, asking the question: ‘how can we be sure if we’re seeing or not seeing the same things as each other?’

Gail Aldam, Arts and Events Manager Scotland for the Mental Health Foundation said: “Every year our group of festival co-ordinators from across Scotland choose a theme together, and we’re especially excited about this one. Invisibility is such a rich theme to explore in relation to mental health.

"It’s an opportunity to talk about all the ways that people can be made to feel invisible and how isolating this can be, it’s an opportunity to talk about stigma, about the things we keep hidden, and about inequality. But we also want to explore visibility – what are the things we choose to reveal about ourselves and our mental health and what are the things we don’t? How do we make the invisible visible?

"Through our artist commissions, and proposals for our showcase in Glasgow and other events across Scotland, we’ve already received so many powerful and provocative responses to this theme and we can’t wait to see what the SMHAF community across Scotland comes up with in October.”

The full programme for the 2024 Scottish Mental Health Arts Festival programme is now online at www.mhfestival.com. The festival will include both live and online events. 

This year’s festival is led by the Mental Health Foundation with support from Creative Scotland, Thrive Edinburgh, Edinburgh Health and Social Care Partnership, University of Glasgow, the Baring Foundation, NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde, See Me, Scottish Recovery Network, and media partner The List, with donations from trusts and foundations.