Published on: 23rd December 2015
A three-month festival of fun, which has helped bring the creative arts to those suffering from mental health problems, will culminate at the end of January with songwriting sessions involving support groups across the county.
The Insider Arts Festival has been running since October 10th and has featured a range of events and performances in museums, community halls, schools, churches and hospitals throughout Lincolnshire.
January’s ‘final flurry’ will see members of three independent advice and support groups from Lincoln, Louth and Sleaford, researching, writing, and recording their own songs and accompanying them with their own original videos.
The festival, which was launched on World Mental Health Day, has been hosted by Lincolnshire Partnership NHS Foundation Trust’s (LPFT) Managed Care Network, in conjunction with cultural solutions UK and the SHINE Mental Health Support Network, to showcase how the arts can have a positive impact on mental health and battle stigma along the way.
Among an amazing array of events that have taken place over the past two months included the popular LPFT-backed ‘living well in our communities’ event which kicked off the entire festival.
Here, cultural solutions UK, in partnership with Invisible Arts, presented their engaging Marvellous Me! theatre performance, an interactive production aimed at addressing mental health stigma for the under-11s.
Other highlights of the festival included showcases and drop in events from the community-based Craft and Social Club for Lived Mental Health Experience in Spilsby, and the Stepping Stone Theatre for Mental Health, based in Gainsborough, which helps people with mental health problems express themselves through theatre, storytelling and improvisation.
Chair of LPFT Paul Devlin, said the Insider Arts Festival was a fantastic way of engaging patients and service users to learn new skills and explore their creative sides.
Getting in touch with our creative, artistic sides can be really rewarding and fun. The wide range of arts covered by this festival gives so many ways for people to express themselves, and I am particularly looking forward to hearing the new songs in January.
Managing Director of cultural solutions UK, David Lambert, said he hoped that a continued partnership with LPFT will help develop an even more inclusive artistic and cultural programme for the future.
Our lives seem to have become so complex, demands on our time increased, with pressure to peform greater than ever,
he said.
It’s inevitable that with such demanding outside influences, we are going to feel the pressure. Pablo Picasso said it far better when he said, ‘art washes from the soul, the dust of everyday life. We see participation in the arts such as the Insider Festival as one way of achieving this.
To find out more about the Insider Arts Festival or how to get involved in January’s songwriting sessions contact David Lambert from cultural solutions UK on 07880 908539.
