In 2026, the Scottish Mental Health Arts Festival celebrates its 20th year, an opportunity to recognise two decades of mental health and creativity while looking at where we are now and where we might go next.
Our theme for this milestone year, Reflections, invites artists, communities and audiences across Scotland to pause, take stock and explore how our experiences, stories and creativity shape
our mental health, individually and collectively.
Reflections invites us to slow down in a world moving so fast it can feel impossible to keep up. How do we find time to reflect when each day’s headlines ring fresh political, economic and environmental upheaval? How can we understand our own needs when our lives are seldom calm and often charged with uncertainty?
Photo by Ingrid Mur
These questions feel particularly urgent at a time when the arts sector is facing profound challenges. In Glasgow, the loss of the CCA, a key festival venue since our first year in 2007, and the issues affecting Trongate 103, home to Project Ability and other vital organisations, remind us how vulnerable cultural spaces can be. Out of Sight Out of Mind, which engages thousands of people each year, also needs new long-term funding following cuts to community mental health services in Edinburgh.
Despite these challenges, there is real momentum for growth in arts and mental health. With support from the Baring Foundation, Creative Scotland is leading the development of a new Arts and Mental Health Framework. Across the UK, interest is also growing in how arts and creativity can help prevent mental health problems. Our programme offers its own reasons for hope, as it celebrates the passion,
commitment and creativity of artists and communities who will be lighting up grassroots spaces and cultural venues across Scotland this October and November.
For 20 years, the festival has championed lived experience, challenged stigma, shaped conversations and celebrated creativity. It is more important than ever to reflect on what has shifted, what barriers remain and how looking back can help us imagine our future.
