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This two-day online event explores productive, radical, contemporary encounters between the arts and mental health, bringing together clinical, artistic and research perspectives that offer a re-interpretation of contemporary mental mental health science and practice, with a view of imagining a different future.

We welcome service users, mental health professionals, artists and researchers and any members of the general public interested in the way the arts can contribute to mental health.

See below for conference highlights and your chance to contribute.

Highlights

Confirmed keynote speakers:

1. Daniel Regan - Photographer: 'Leading with Lived Experience'

2. Dr Tom Cant - Consultant Psychiatrist: 'Hopelessness is a lone voice: an introduction to Open Dialogue'

3. Amanda Griffith - Lived Expert Consultant: 'The Power Threat Meaning Framework'

4. Julie McNamara - Playwright and Theatre Director: 'Staging Creative Activism: Using theatre to speak truth to power'

LIVE CAPTIONING IS AVAILABLE FOR OUR KEYNOTE SPEAKER SESSIONS

Plus: 

• Panel discussion by the Solitude project at Queen Mary, led by Professor Barbara Taylor
• Panel discussion by the Centre for the History of Emotions at Queen Mary, with Prof Thomas Dixon, Dr Rhodri Hayward and Dr Tiffany Watt Smith
• Panel discussion on the role of theatres in public mental health with Roxana Silbert, Artistic Director of Hampstead Theatre and Dani Parr, Director of Participation and Work for Young People at Almeida Theatre.
• There will also be a creative enquiry activity for all, and opportunities for small group discussions in response to provocations and creative work submitted to the conference. See here below to send your contributions:

Photo from Julie McNamara's 'Voices from The Knitting Circle' - (knit1) © Zeynep Dagli

Contribute

Mad Hearts is inviting contributions on the theme of Futuring mental health including compassion and ways to flourishing on both sides of the healthcare divide.

Submit your work

Organisers: Maria Grazia Turri, Bridget Escolme, Louise Younie, Rupert Dannreuther

PAST CONFERENCES

2020

SOLITUDE AND THE ENCOUNTER

This one-day webinar explores productive, radical, contemporary encounters between the arts and mental health, bringing together clinical, artistic and research perspectives that offer a re-interpretation of contemporary mental health science and practice.

We welcome service users, mental health professionals, artists and researchers and any members of the general public interested in the way the arts can contribute to mental health.

 

2019

Mad Hearts: The Arts and Mental Health

A one day online event organised by the MSc Creative Arts and Mental Health

19 June 2020 | Online

Mad Hearts: Arts and Mental Health Conference Brochure [PDF 392KB]

This two-day conference explores productive, radical, contemporary encounters between the arts and mental health, bringing together clinical, artistic and research perspectives that offer a re-interpretation of contemporary mental health science and practice.

Thematic sessions will range from the importance of narrative and meaning making in mental health, to the pedagogical use of the arts as progressive intervention, and arguments for a radical shift in mental health practice. The programme is enriched by theatre performances on the theme of mental health and an art exhibition. Delegates will have the opportunity to contribute their responses through a 'long table' discussion; this will provide the stimulus for the panel discussion with stakeholders and international experts that will round off the conference.  

We welcome mental health professionals, researchers and any members of the general public interested in the way the arts can contribute to mental health.

For more information please contact: Maria Turri m.turri@qmul.ac.uk