HeadSpace 09
Brief description:
HeadSpace is East Glasgow’s exciting mental health arts festival that takes place each October in partnership with arts venue Platform. It is an essential part of the Scottish Mental Health Arts and Film Festival encompassing a mix of theatre, literature, film, dance, music and visual arts.
Aims:
To engage hundreds of people from East Glasgow in exploring mental health through the arts. It also showcases East Glasgow’s arts and health activities on a national platform.
What’s happening:
Each year the PMA arts groups and partner organisations come together to create a stimulating programme of events to showcase their talents and engage the local community. The annual event takes over every stage, wall and space in arts venue Platform to create a mix of inspired artwork, writing, films and thought-provoking theatre and performance.
HeadSpace takes place in October each year and this year will run from Friday 15th October 2010.
Evaluation and feedback:
An evaluation of the arts festival demonstrated that events such as Headspace that focused on personal experience narrative had a particular impact on reducing stigma and promoting recovery. This provides support for promoting community arts programmes, which as a result of positive personal contact have been shown to promote recovery amongst people who access services as well as reducing stigma within the audience and event organisers. This is demonstrated in quotes from audience members at Headspace:
“Mental health is common in society”
“People with mental health problems can suffer silently”
“Now I can talk to others about mental health”
Quinn N, Shulman A, Knifton L and Byrne P (2010) The Impact of a National Mental Health Arts and Film Festival on Stigma and Recovery. Acta Psychiatrica Scandinavica.
Partners:
- Positive Mental Attitudes (PMA)
- Platform (Glasgow East Arts Company)
- Scottish Mental Health Arts and Film Festival
