If you’ve ever felt shamed for your ‘madness’, we invite you to the Mad Soft Rage Room. Smash a giant brain piñata, pillow fight the patriarchy, and have a good (muffled) scream.
Through art, writing and playful participatory activities, explore the frustrations of mental distress, stigma and society. Together we’ll transform our rage into creativity, connection and collective care.
The Mad Soft Rage Room is designed to provide a welcoming and creative space where people can safely explore and express emotions that are often misunderstood or discouraged, particularly anger, frustration and resistance.
Through utilising interactive art, performance, writing and discussion, the event aims to encourage self-expression and co-creation whilst reducing stigma surrounding mental distress. It will be built to foster solidarity and connection between people with lived experience, carers, allies and the wider community.
Hosted by the Centre for Mad Culture UK, the event will celebrate Mad insight and creativity while creating opportunities for conversation and reflection. By reframing rage as a valid human response to personal and systemic experiences rather than something to be hidden or feared, the event aims to empower participants and strengthen community understanding around madness and mental health.
About the Artists
Centre for Mad Culture UK
The Centre for Mad Culture UK is a hub of information, creative engagement and community building for people with lived experience of madness and/or psychiatric services, as well as their family, friends and allies. Madfolk may include those who identify as mad, mentally ill, survivors of psychiatry, mental health service users, patients and/or neurodivergent.
CMC UK challenges sanism and psychophobia, encourages mad pride and transforms madness into a source of community, activism and solidarity.
Luke ‘Luca’ Cockayne
Luke ‘Luca’ Cockayne (he/they), (b.1990), is a transmasc conceptual artist, writer, and curator based in Glasgow. Formerly known as Ana Hine, his work is highly autobiographical and often deals with mental health, trauma and gender. He is particularly interested in ‘difficult art’ and curating in a way that is as safe as possible for both the artist and audience. A central question of his work is how do you show work about trauma without re-traumatising either party?
Lee-Ann Sheehy (She/Her)
Lee-Ann Sheehy is a queer, geeky, neurodivergent lead art psychotherapist based in Edinburgh. Through Artful Thinking, she has provided specialised gender-affirming and neuro-affirming creative therapy services for neurodivergent young people, adults, and their families since 2018.
Lee-Ann is a mixed-media artist with a strong interest in bringing embodied art therapy principles and processes into her art making. Her creative work explores how emotions, thoughts, and feelings can be examined through the sensory, reflective, and expressive processes involved in making art.
With experience running youth arts programmes and facilitating large creative workshops for diverse audiences, Lee-Ann is committed to accessible, community-centred practice. She enjoys developing innovative approaches to creative projects that invite participants to engage with the whole mind and body.
