• Abstract and Figures
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3–26 May 2019 mhfestival.com INTRODUCTION ● WELCOME The festival is led by the Mental Health Foundation in association with national partners: Welcome Each year the Scottish Mental Health Arts Festival has a new theme. Unusually for an arts festival, this theme is not decided by a sole artistic One of this festival’s director or producer but by a vote. Before the programming process begins, our team of regional co-ordinators — dozens of activists, artists, and people core strengths has who work in various healthcare settings all over Scotland — meet in one place and discuss what we would most like to express, as a community, through always been the our programme. We brainstorm ideas and then we vote. connections it The theme we chose this year was Connected. On reflection, it’s strange that it’s taken us 13 festivals to pick it. One of this festival’s core strengths builds, between has always been the connections it builds, between communities all across Scotland, between people trying to find their creative voice and established communities all artists, between the different worlds of activism, the arts, and healthcare, and between international communities, through our connections with mental health festivals across Europe, and in Australia and the USA. This, we decided, across Scotland. was something we wanted to celebrate. This feels like a good year to be focusing on the ways in which we are all connected. Without wishing to make political statements, the prolonged Brexit process has created all kinds of divisions that won’t easily heal, and anxiety on a national scale. We are not addressing that directly, but we do want to tell lots of positive stories about connection. In Electrolyte, an award-winning piece of gig theatre at the Traverse and the Tron, a young woman finds her way back from a mental health crisis thanks to the support of her group of friends. In the films Evelyn and We Are All Here, a family and a hip hop community, respectively, come together to grieve for someone they dearly loved. In A Day of Failure, SMHAF’s associate artist Emma Jayne Park will bring together emerging and established names to talk honestly about their failures — not many things connect people more powerfully than admitting to our mistakes. This will be a festival in which we celebrate the connections we’ve already made over our 13 years, as well as making some new ones. We hope you will join us at some of our events. The Festival Team 2 / SCOTTISH MENTAL HEALTH ARTS FESTIVAL 2019 Designed by Front Page frontpage.co.uk mhfestival.com / 3 INTRODUCTION ● CONTENTS Contents PARTNERS 2 WELCOME 3 FESTIVAL HIGHLIGHTS 6 Electrolyte 8 SMHAF Writing Awards 9 INTERNATIONAL FILM AWARDS 10 Film Programme 12 WHAT’S ON Glasgow 16 Edinburgh & Lothian 20 Lanarkshire 25 Renfrewshire 26 Ayrshire 32 The Borders 34 East Dunbartonshire 36 Fife 39 Angus 40 Highlands 41 Moray 45 STAY CONNECTED 46 GETTING HELP 47 mhfestival.com / 5 FEATURES ● FESTIVAL HIGHLIGHTS FESTIVAL Highlights Do you feel connected to other people? If so, how? And if you don’t feel connected to others, or to the world, what impact does this have on your mental health? Our festival theme this year has inspired artists, activists and community groups across the country to explore questions like these in all kinds of creative ways. Our theatre programme includes Mississippi). By contrast, Jennifer (Women’s Café Project, Storytelling for Wellbeing (p25), Angela Barnes’ new show Rose Images, clockwise from above: Electrolyte (p8, 16, 23), a multi Adam’s new play The House That Edinburgh, p20) and the LGBT an evening of storytelling, Tinted. The comedian, who has Evelyn; Epic Fail; award-winning piece of gig Melts With The Rain (p22), which community, in exhibitions such as connection and honesty in previously performed at our Gala Electrolyte theatre in Edinburgh and Glasgow has a rehearsed reading in Belonging, in Glasgow (p17), and Edinburgh. Elsewhere, Walk a Mile for Mental Health at the Edinburgh telling the story of a woman Edinburgh, is about a woman who Queer Connections in Hawick events across Scotland invite you Fringe, is bringing last year’s isolated from her friends by a isolates herself from the world by (p34) to connect with people over the sell-out Fringe show to the Stand psychotic episode, and how she continuing to hide inside her course of a mile-long walk – our Comedy Club in Edinburgh (p24) ultimately manages to reconnect house, even as it falls apart. Viola Our film programme this year festival programme includes and Glasgow (p18) and we’re with them. Holding it Together (p19), in Glasgow is a solo aerial has a particular focus on family Walk a Mile events in Paisley (p29), delighted to have her as part of (p17) is a new performance piece performance that reimagines connections, in films such as Kyle of Lochalsh (p41) and our festival programme. in Glasgow by two young women Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night to Evelyn and Irene’s Ghost, Inverness (p43); in a similar spirit, brought together by their shared explore isolation and anxiety. poignant and powerful feature there are nature walks in places experience of grief. The show, by Trace, also in Glasgow (p16), documentaries about families including Inverness (p43), Golspie Jassy Earl and Chloe Smith, is uses puppetry to explore the processing the loss of a loved (p43) and Pollok Country Park (p18). produced by our associate artist impact of Adverse Childhood one to mental illness. You can If, after all that, you just want a Emma Jayne Park, who also Experiences on mental health. read more about our prestigious good laugh, we recommend curates A Day of Failure (p19), a International Film Awards gathering in Glasgow at which For our visual art programme, programme, which features people will connect with each Emily Furneaux has created She documentaries and dramas from other by sharing their experiences Stepped Backwards In Front Of all over the world selected from of failure. Elsewhere, The Mental the Words Behind Her (p16) an hundreds of awards entries, Health Monologues (p35), in audio tour of Glasgow that will on p10. Langtongate, sees six people offer audiences an insight into her sharing their mental health experience of psychosis. Often the simplest and most journeys, followed by a Q&A Elsewhere in Glasgow, All, Entire, effective way to connect with where the audience can join the Whole (p16) is a See Me curated someone is just to start a conversation too. Doing it Our group exhibition bringing together conversation. This year’s film Way (p33) is a whole day of artists exploring mental health. programme will include the conversation and performance Other exhibitions focus on people chance to meet our guest centred around a mental health who are often discriminated filmmakers for pre-arranged themed piece of theatre by against, such as gypsy/travellers one-to-one conversations. We’re Mariem Omari and Mark Jeary (of (in Moving Minds’ show in also pleased to welcome back previous SMHAF show One Craigmillar, p20), refugees Lily Asch’s Real Talk: 6 / SCOTTISH MENTAL HEALTH ARTS FESTIVAL 2019 FEATURES ● SMHAF FESTIVAL HIGHLIGHTS Winner, Mental Health Fringe Award 2018 Writing Electrolyte Awards Hosted by Ian Rankin by Wildcard Theatre Music by Emma Pollock ‘We are a blip. A speck of dust. We are delighted to welcome The Scottish Mental Health Arts The SMHAF Writing Awards will To be wiped off the face of time Electrolyte back to Scotland for Festival’s Writing Awards, in also see the launch of 70 Stories, like you might a bike chain’s rust. a week of dates as part of a two- partnership with Bipolar Scotland, a year-long project to mark the But to each of us, month tour of the UK and Ireland, is one of SMHAF’s most enduring 70th anniversary of the Mental we are everything’ also supported by the Mental successes. An opportunity for Health Foundation. 70 Stories will Health Foundation. first time writers to be published connect pieces from our writing Follow Jessie through gigs, alongside established names, competition, stories from the first parties, city streets and Electrolyte’s dates at the the ceremony is often where 13 years of SMHAF, and more to warehouses, journeying from Tron Theatre are presented in we discover what our festival create a compelling portrait of Leeds to London, on a quest to association with Mayfesto. is really about, as writers from mental health in 2019. find her mother. There will be post-show across Scotland and further afield Electrolyte is a multi-award discussions on Tuesday 14 May take inspiration from this year’s winning piece of gig theatre that and Wednesday 15 May. theme in poignant, powerful, powerfully explores mental health personal and often ingenious and for a contemporary audience. surprising ways. Written in spoken word poetry and This year the evening is hosted underscored by original music by best-selling author Ian Rankin ranging from “blasts of sound to and will open with a short set by lyrical sweetness” ( one of Scotland’s top singer- The Scotsman), this exhilarating songwriters, Emma Pollock. and powerful show is performed Our ten shortlisted writers will by six multi-instrumentalists who read from their work, before the seamlessly integrate live music DON’T MISS IT awards presentation and a drinks with expert storytelling. reception. Electrolyte Electrolyte won the 2018 Mental Tue 14 May 7.30pm Health Fringe Award, a prize Traverse Theatre, 10 Cambridge founded by the Mental Health Street, Edinburgh, EH1 2ED Foundation in recognition of the £15 | £12 | £10 | £5 0131 228 1404 W traverse.co.uk most outstanding show exploring DON’T MISS IT mental health at the Edinburgh Fringe.

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