THE Scottish Mental Health Arts Festival (SMHAF) has announced a new series of artist commissions exploring the theme My Normality.
Projects will address everything from everyday racism to living with endometriosis, anorexia and cystic fibrosis.
The eight selected artists will join people all over Scotland who are contributing to the festival via hundreds of online and outdoor events.
The commissions range from a film using drag to symbolise the transformative effects of medicine to a series of spoken-word pieces confronting unhealthy attitudes towards food and the body. They will be shown at www.mhfestival.com during the festival and throughout the summer.
Andrew Eaton-Lewis, arts programme officer for the Mental Health Foundation, said: “The media has been full of phrases like ‘the new normal’. But everybody’s normality is different and that was always going to affect how the Covid-19 lockdown impacted on people’s mental health. With this commission we wanted to explore what ‘normality’ means to artists across Scotland.
Pictured above is one of the newly commissioned artists, Dundee-based Eilidh Morris, who writes and performs spoken word poetry. She will create a new filmed piece, with music collaboration with musician Johnny Threshold.
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