Blog - Mental Health
Thoughts on the election and accessible shopping – no delivery man this time!
December 11, 2019 - by Liz BentleyThese last few weeks have been difficult. Chronic insomnia and flu viruses affecting me and most of my family. The general election on Thursday falls on ‘Perverse Verse’ my show I host at the Ivyhouse in Nunhead. It was supposed to be our Xmas Stocking show, it's changed into something ...
Thoughts on how would I ‘pick myself up’ now? While waiting for the Tesco Delivery Man (or occasionally Woman)
November 11, 2019 - by Liz BentleyI love Ken Loach, I really, really love him. I’ve seen ‘Sorry We Missed You’ and ‘I Daniel Blake’ and last week I saw him on a chat show talking with a council tenant about the squalid accommodation and homelessness in our country. A man on the ‘phone-in’ to Ken ...
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 ...