We’re excited to announce the five artists we have commissioned to create new work as part of our 2024 programme. They are Deborah Shaw, Meray Diner, Rebecca Livesey-Wright & Indra Wilson, Ritu Arya, and Sarah Forrest.
Responding to our theme of In/Visible, their projects will shed light on hidden stories rooted in lived experience, covering vocal and physical tics, conflict, trauma, queer pregnancy and m*therhood, and neurodivergence.
The commissioned work – which encompasses music, film, sound art and sculpture – will be shared on the Explore section of our website and at our showcase event Now You See Us on Friday 25 and Saturday 26 October.
One of the key questions we wanted to explore with our theme is year is: how can we use the arts and creativity to make mental health, as an issue, more ‘visible’, in a way that engages people and challenges stigma? This new collection of work demonstrates how powerful the arts can be, in all kinds of media, to make stories like these more visible.
We would also like to say a huge thank you to everyone who applied to this commission. We received a record number of applications this year and there were so many innovative, exciting and impassioned proposals that we wish we could have supported. We are committed to supporting diverse artists to explore mental health through their work and hope that we can find ways to support your work in the future.
About the commissions
Deborah Shaw: Flutter
Composer and sound artist Deborah Shaw (Aurora Engine) will present Flutter, an electronic-infused choral suite inspired by her lived experience of vocal and physical tics. Deborah has experienced tics due to Tourette’s Syndrome since her early childhood, which are exacerbated by anxiety. In this work she explores living with and managing tics and how sound and singing can serve as a mental health tonic. Additionally, the composition addresses masking in women, aligning with the In/Visible theme.
Composed for four voices, some pieces will have a jarring tone to represent the rhythm and pitch of both physical and vocal tics. As the piece progresses, it transitions into a harmonious blend of choral and ambient electronic elements, culminating in a euphoric soundscape that symbolises the calming effect of sound and singing on the body. Certain works will occupy a dark, liminal space where mental health issues often reside, whilst also exploring the artist’s relationship with conformity. The compositions embrace the beauty of sound as a therapeutic tool and celebrate human imperfection.
Flutter will be available to listen to through headphones at Now You See Us on Friday 25 and Saturday 26 October at the CCA in Glasgow.
Meray Diner: Dreamscape
Meray Diner is a Cypriot filmmaker based in Scotland. She explores the human relationship with the land, water, environment and the political themes that emerge from them.
Dreamscape is a brief encounter with how fear manifests itself in our dreams, influenced by current affairs and how we react to them. The film will explore how our subconscious minds can experience generational trauma and conflict and the ways that they’re triggered by news and events can affect our survival and response to the current situations around us.
Dreamscape will be screened as part of the SMHAF Short Film Showcase at Now You See Us on Friday 25 and Saturday 26 October at the CCA in Glasgow.
Rebecca Livesey-Wright & Indra Wilson: In/visible m*ther
Rebecca Livesey-Wright is an artist, curator, producer and facilitator based in Glasgow, predominantly working in socially engaged and community practice and with a focus on m*therhoods and matrescence. Indra Wilson is a genderqueer, working class, emerging Glasgow-based artist who works across contemporary performance, live art, comedy and dance.
Their collaborative project, In/visible m*ther, makes visible the hidden narratives of two queer people, both pregnant and single, and in their early twenties. Indra and Rebecca explore what it means to be pregnant in this context whilst navigating internal biases, family judgements and the overwhelming landscape of ‘perfect motherhood’. They find they share more in their experiences than they have with other people who have been pregnant, despite one of their pregnancies ending with birth and the other with loss of pregnancy.
Ritu Arya: Peek-A-Boo
Ritu Arya is a multidisciplinary artist from India, currently based in Glasgow. Her work revolves around sorrow, melancholia, longing and similar sentiments, with a constant emphasis on the sufferings that untended trauma can create.
She is showcasing a sculptural installation titled Peek-A-Boo. This collection of multifaceted organic-shaped sculptures will create a space for viewers to reflect on how acknowledgment and acceptance are perhaps the primary steps in tackling mental health issues as a society.
Working in conjunction with materials, their textures and moods, my practice entails inspecting, dissecting, and attempting to voice the lingering remains of untended trauma in day-to-day life. Somewhere between organic and abstract, my sculptures are usually primitive, archaic and multi-faceted. And with visible hints of anatomy, they contain cracks, cavities and openings, along with fragments of my agitation, all the while also holding space – space for individual interpretation and analysis.
Peek-A-Boo will be available to view in person at Now You See Us on Friday 25 and Saturday 26 October at the CCA in Glasgow.
Sarah Forrest
Sarah Forrest is an artist based in Glasgow who works across film, installation, text and sound. Her practice weaves together elements of theory, fiction and philosophy to produce narrative-driven works that explore perceptions both by and of the self.
For the Scottish Mental Health Arts Festival, Sarah Forrest and her nephew Ruairidh Hutchison are collaborating on a short film that will combine animation, video footage and spoken word recordings to explore the idea that there is no correct way for the brain to work, but rather there is a wide range of ways that people perceive and respond to the world.
When we were brainstorming for the film, I asked Ruairidh what his experience of ADHD was like. He told me ADHD has been a big part of his life but he could never really tell the difference between him and another person who doesn’t have it.
He said he knows there is a difference, but he just can’t see it. The relationship between our mental health and in/visibility is complicated, not only because of its (largely) external invisibility, but perhaps also because of its internal one too.
Playing with filmic tropes, tricks and metaphors of invisibility, the collaborative film will consider the question, ‘how can we be sure if we’re seeing or not seeing the same things as each other?
