Blog - Mental Health
The Drawing Marathon – Week Two
November 9, 2019 - by Lauren SaundersLegitimately could've sworn that I posted this back in September - better late than never though, right? Welcome to the second part of my two-part blog documenting my 2 week ‘Drawing Marathon’ experience of the Royal Drawing School. As described in the first of these two blogs, this course was ...
My Soul is a Search Engine
November 4, 2019 - by Dolly SenMY SOUL IS A SEARCH ENGINE by Dolly Sen I make film, I make art, I make books, and I make trouble. One way I employ two of those things – the art & trouble-making – is by disrupting systems that produce ‘copy and paste’ identities/thoughts/perceptions/life/death, as a Trojan horse dressed ...
Extended thoughts about the ‘Joker’ while waiting for the Tesco Delivery Man
October 31, 2019 - by Liz BentleyWe all have a ‘Joker’ within us, I know mine and it isn’t nearly as severe as the ‘Joker’s’ in the film, but it is plenty enough to gain understanding in my work as a psychotherapist. In Primary Care where I worked for 12 years, one of my old patients ...
A Crash Course in Cloudspotting: Precarity in the Modern Age
October 28, 2019 - by Raquel MeseguerIf you’ve read any of my blogs, you’ll know I am neurodiverse and have had chronic pain for over a decade. Last weekend I had a flare-up, a scary one, where all my usual tricks to calm the nervous system didn’t work, and I spent hours tracing the outline of ...
Miss Havisham’s Wedding Dress
September 17, 2019 - by Michelle BaharierI am a multi-disciplinary artist and in 2012 I made work that celebrated the London Olympics and the Paralympics but also Charles Dickens' bi-centenary, depicting Miss Havisham's Wedding Dress. It's now being brought out of storage for a new show, Impatient! Stories of service user advocacy at Bethlem Museum of ...
Protest: out of the asylum and into the recovery plan
August 27, 2019 - by Colin HambrookI am pleased to say that I am going to have a painting – albeit one made nearly 30 years ago – in an exhibition coming up, curated by DAO's own Dolly Sen. Art & Protest: What’s there to be mad about? is on exhibition ...
The Drawing Marathon – Week One
August 26, 2019 - by Lauren SaundersLast month, I went to the Royal Drawing School in London to take part in their 2 week Drawing Marathon. This experience was the core part of my Emergence Bursary from artist-network, Shape Arts and Disability Arts Online. There was a few reasons I wanted to go;
Life as a Side Effect
August 12, 2019 - by Dolly SenI wonder what would happen if every birth came with a side effect leaflet, would there be less births? Do we care about the pain of existence for some people? What happens if you have an overdose of people? Or an overdose of pain that no tablet can touch? I ...
What Did You Think I Was Going To Do?
July 28, 2019 - by Dolly SenOn July 22nd with the help of some fellow disabled activists from DPAC, Mental Health Resistance Network and WinVisible, we performed a symbolic action – called ‘Broken Hearts for the DWP’ – to remember those who have not survived the cuts. Each person carried a large red ...
Waiting for the drought to break
July 4, 2019 - by Aidan MoesbyTwitter analytics tell me my tweets are down 59.6%, tweet impressions down 48.4% and my reach is 26.4k. Compare that to March 78.5K. The picture this data paints is indicative of where I feel I am at. Last March I was about to go away to the Shakespeare Birthplace Trust on ...