As part of the Scottish Mental Health Arts Festival 2026, we offered grants in partnership with the Baring Foundation and Creative Scotland to support participatory arts projects in areas underrepresented in the festival. We’re delighted to announce details of what will be created.
The SMHAF Regional Participatory Arts Fund supports artist-led projects that actively involve communities in the creative process. The fund prioritises participatory arts where participants become co-creators, shaping the work through collaboration and shared decision-making. The fund aims to empower communities, foster creative expression, and deepen engagement with mental health through the arts.
Applicants directly engage people with lived experience of mental health problems or those at elevated risk. This includes young people, refugees, people with long-term conditions, and racialised communities.
With a strategic focus on Perth, Stirling, and towns and rural communities across Scotland, the fund supported 12 projects responding to our Reflections theme, with each project offering their own unique interpretation.
This year Perth and Stirling have been able to offer their most comprehensive SMHAF programmes yet exploring themes such as social media, recovery and resilience, and building confidence through arts. Other areas being supported include Dumfries and Galloway, Galashiels, Paisley and North Ayrshire where projects explore a range of art forms including cyanotype photography, gardening and.textiles, and willow weaving.
Participants have gained new skills while creating art which celebrates experiences and voices that are often underrepresented in rural cultural spaces.
About the Projects
The Postcard Project
Mindspace will invite people across Perth and Kinross to explore the festival theme of Reflections through visual art, creative writing and spoken word. Participants will create postcard-sized artworks inspired by themes of identity, resilience, memory, hope and recovery, which will be brought together into a large collaborative installation. Alongside the visual artwork, contributors will help develop a collective spoken word piece, celebrating the diverse experiences, voices and perspectives within the community. The final work will be showcased during SMHAF 2026, highlighting the power of creative expression to build confidence, connection and wellbeing.
We’re really looking forward to hosting this event for SMHAF 2026. Watching people across Perth and Kinross connect through visual art and spoken word highlights the profound impact creativity has on mental health and recovery. We are proud to provide a space where everyone’s voice and story can be celebrated.
Nicola Daubney, Senior Recovery Facilitator
Reflect in Perth Art Gallery
Culture Perth and Kinross will lead a participatory arts project in connection with a major exhibition by an acclaimed Scottish artist at Perth Art Gallery. Working alongside Trauma Healing Together, participants will explore themes of mental health, trauma, resilience and self-reflection through guided visits, discussions and artist-led workshops inspired by the artist’s artwork. Together, the group will create a collaborative artwork for a pop-up display at Perth Art Gallery and the AK Bell Library, reflecting on their own experiences and the ways creativity can help us process difficult emotions and experiences. The project celebrates the role of art in fostering reflection, connection and wellbeing, while creating opportunities for meaningful participation and dialogue.
Moredun Ward, Murray Royal Hospital
Artists Laura Stock and Emma Usoro will lead a participatory arts project for patients on the Moredun Ward at Murray Royal Hospital, supporting people experiencing acute mental health challenges to co-create a permanent artwork for the ward’s family visiting room. Through participative methods, patients and staff will reflect on experiences of recovery, resilience and hope, developing ideas, messages and imagery that will shape the final piece. The artwork will transform the space into a more welcoming and supportive environment for patients and their families, while celebrating the creativity, strength and lived experiences of those involved. By placing participants at the heart of the creative process, the project aims to foster confidence, self-expression and a sense of ownership during a particularly challenging time in people’s lives.
Being admitted to a psychiatric hospital can be a very difficult experience, so transforming the ward from clinical bare walls to a warm and welcoming space creates a powerful message that they are supported and cared for. Having this funding will make a significant difference to patients’ hospital experience when they are at their most vulnerable.
LAURA STOCK, PROJECT ARTIST
Creative Catalyst
This project by Creative Catalyst Scotland CIC will bring together young people aged 16–24 in Perth for a series of workshops combining expressive mark-making and creative writing. Using materials such as collage, charcoal and pastels, participants will be encouraged to explore creativity without pressure or expectations, focusing on the process rather than the finished product.
Reflections, emotions and ideas emerging from the artwork will be developed into poems and written pieces, creating connections between visual expression, words and wellbeing. The work created through the project will be showcased at Perth Creative Exchange during SMHAF 2026, celebrating young people’s creativity, self-expression and reflections on their experiences.
Expressive mark making at its core is communication of the artist in the present; it is not a form conveying a still life or a physical moment in time. Instead, it is more focused on the process of how the artist is creating their marks – the pressure, speed, direction, and texture. You remove the pressure of perfection, instead embracing the freedom of an unfiltered voice. The addition of prose into this mix is another way that we as creatives can communicate; by combining these two practices, you are giving yourself the space and time to communicate in another form, giving value to direct expression and instinctual creativity.
Caitlin Hannah, Creative Catalyst CIC
Reflections: Social Media and Mental Health
Reverb Studio at Strathearn Arts is a creative space where young people are supported to lead their own artistic ideas and projects. For SMHAF 2026, participants will explore the impact of social media on mental health, identity and wellbeing, creating original artworks that reflect their experiences, perspectives and concerns. Guided by artist Helen McCrorie, the young people will develop and present a public exhibition and temporary art trail across Crieff, transforming shopfronts and community spaces into accessible galleries. The project aims to spark conversation, encourage reflection, and amplify young people’s voices on an issue that plays a significant role in their everyday lives.
Reverb is a truly exceptional creative studio for young people in Crieff, held each week at Strathearn Arts. As a youth-led project facilitated by professional artist Helen McCrorie, it gives young people the unique opportunity to work alongside a practising artist and discover activities ranging from animation and screen printing to graffiti art and much more. Just as important is the supportive ethos at the heart of the group. From the very beginning, the young people came together to create and agree on their own shared values, making Reverb an inclusive, welcoming and encouraging space where everyone feels they belong. The growth in confidence, creativity and self-expression that I’ve witnessed has been remarkable. Reverb is unlike any other project in the area, and seeing the positive impact it continues to have on the lives of these young people is genuinely inspiring.
Angela Lennon, Artistic Director,
Men’s Shed: Metalwork Edition
Men’s Shed: Metalwork Edition is a creative jewellery-making workshop designed specifically for members of local Men’s Shed groups and other men who may not normally engage with arts activities. Delivered by a professional jewellery tutor at the Central Scotland School of Jewellery (CSSJ) in Dunblane, participants will be introduced to practical jewellery and metalworking skills while creating a silver ring to take home. The workshop aims to create a relaxed, sociable environment where participants can learn something new, work with their hands and experience the enjoyment and sense of achievement that comes from making something themselves. The workshop itself will take place ahead of the festival, with photographs documenting the participants, process and finished work then exhibited as part of SMHAF.
People are often put off creative pursuits very early in life. Over the years, countless students have told me they’re ‘not creative’, ‘no good at art’, or were simply told to give up — and that makes me angry for them. Creative skills are taught skills; very few of us are born artists. Creativity can, and should, be enjoyed by everyone. Making something with your hands can also give you a few hours away from everything else that’s going on, which is why being part of the Scottish Mental Health Arts Festival feels like such a good fit for this project.
Jo Pudelko, Central Scotland School of Jewellery
Mak-Mind
A creative wellbeing project for working-age people with lived experience of cancer led by artist and cancer survivor Renate Kriegler Edwards. Participants will reflect on their cancer journey and use creative visioning techniques to identify a SMART goal for life beyond treatment. Through guided workshops, each person will design and create a unique silver charm symbolising their goal, resilience and hopes for the future. The project will combine creative expression, reflection and peer support, providing a space for participants to share experiences, explore emotions and build confidence for the next stage of their lives.
Exhibiting aspects of the project furthermore invites members of the public, participants’ personal support networks, clinicians and policy makers to reflect more deeply on a cancer patient’s experience, and perhaps their own influence on this.
Renate Kriegler Edwards, Artist Facilitator
The Fabric of Us
The Fabric of Us is a collaborative textile and creative writing project inspired by the confessional, text-based fabric works of Tracey Emin. Co-delivered by Reachout with Arts in Mind’s professional artist facilitator, Leanne Dewar, members and volunteers, the project will support participants to create a large-scale textile wall hanging in response to the SMHAF 2026 theme, Reflections. Participants will explore personal memories, lived experiences, identity, relationships and collective narratives to form the basis of a large-scale appliqué textile artwork, with words, phrases and poetic fragments stitched into a shared fabric backdrop alongside swatches of cloth carrying personal and social histories.
We’re delighted to receive funding from the Scottish Mental Health Arts Festival for The Fabric of Us. This project will help support a creative space where our members can reflect and express themselves through textiles, creativity, and text-based works. While also creating a work that’s both deeply personal and proudly collective. Stitch by stitch, we’re looking forward to creating an artwork that celebrates connection, creativity and the stories that make us who we are.
Leanne Dewar, Senior Artist Facilitator and Engagement Manager
The Ferguslie Dye Gardeners
The Ferguslie Dye Gardeners is a participatory gardening and textile project led by artist Laura Spring, from Sculpture House, in partnership with Recovery Across Mental Health (RAMH). Bringing together local residents in Ferguslie Park, Paisley and the wider Renfrewshire community, the project combines gardening, natural dyeing and textile-making to support wellbeing, creativity and community connection. For SMHAF 2026, participants will create a large-scale textile installation inspired by the changing seasons, reflecting both the cycle of the garden and their own experiences of growth, resilience and change. The finished artwork will be unveiled at RAMH headquarters during the festival, celebrating the power of creativity, reflection and collaboration to support mental wellbeing.
The Dye Garden is a fantastic place and such a lovely group of people. To grow a seed into a plant and then produce a bath of dye to end up with a piece of coloured cloth is an amazingly rich and rewarding experience which gives me great pleasure. Long may it continue!
S, PROJECT PARTICIPANT
Light Up Dumfries & Galloway
Light Up will allow D&G based arts organisation OutPost Arts to collaborate with adults in custody at HMP Dumfries, hosting a series of cyanotype workshops led by experienced local artist Steven Burnie, who specialises in facilitating accessible and person-centred creative experiences. The sessions will focus on skills development, shared learning, and creative expression – developing layered images inspired by personal reflection. Participants will select their favourite lyrics and meaningful text as a starting point for artmaking – exploring a range of techniques, processes and approaches, improving their self-esteem and promoting a sense of accomplishment. An exhibition in the prison’s learning space will celebrate and share outcomes with other learners and staff – creating opportunities for dialogue, creative development and personal growth.
We’re excited to connect HMP Dumfries to the Scottish Mental Health Arts Festival for the first time. The Light Up project will break down barriers for people in custody to take part in a national programme that promotes artmaking for wellbeing. We hope that creative interests are sparked through participation, and that by completing the workshops and sharing their work with others, participants’ experience a real sense of achievement.
Lucy Bell, Creative Health & Wellbeing Director, OutPost Arts
Harbourside Headspace: Breaching the Water
Artist Ellie Swanston will lead a participatory arts project bringing together unpaid carers and participants from previous community arts projects across North Ayrshire to create a large-scale coracle, a traditional Celtic river boat that helps connect communities separated by water. Led by a participatory artist and developed through a co-production approach, the group will use a mix of creative techniques, including textiles, knitting and crochet, to build and decorate the vessel. Inspired by the festival theme Reflections, the project will provide a welcoming space for participants to explore their experiences, share stories and reflect on their journeys as carers. The finished artwork will be exhibited at the Scottish Maritime Museum during SMHAF 2026.
This project has allowed us to explore our roles as unpaid carers but also has given us time to experiment and play, learning new skills such as willow weaving. We are able to forget all our worries for a couple of hours. Our group is very important to me for my health, it’s such a boost for my well-being.
PROJECT PARTICIPANT
Reflections of Belonging
Reflections of Belonging is a participatory visual arts and wellbeing project led by artist Syrraa Ali in collaboration with people from racialised communities in the Scottish Borders. Through a series of free mixed-media workshops at Little Art Hub in Galashiels, participants will explore themes of identity, memory, migration, belonging and wellbeing using painting, collage, watercolour and mark-making. Taking a process-led and participant-centred approach, the project will create a supportive space for reflection, creative expression and connection. The work created through the workshops will be brought together in a public exhibition during SMHAF 2026, celebrating experiences and voices that are often underrepresented in rural cultural spaces.
Reflections of Belonging is about creating a safe and welcoming space where people can explore identity, memory, migration and belonging through art. As an artist who has experienced migration myself, I understand how meaningful it can be to find connection and a sense of belonging in a new place. I hope these workshops create opportunities for creativity, reflection, wellbeing and community.
Syrraa Ali, Lead ArtisT
All images courtesy of the participating artists and organisations.
