NIMHAFF Mental Health Awareness Week

Hi there. Happy almost Friday!

It’s mental health awareness week and lots of people live with mental health problems. I do sometimes and I want to show another side of it.

Today I’m going to tell you all about the Northern Ireland mental health arts and film festival taking place in Belfast on May 16th.

There is going to be a great variety of things to do during this festival. Events including film, visual art, poetry and performances from spoken word artists and theatre groups can all be enjoyed during this festival. You can check out their website to get an idea of what’s going on in their programme.

These events will be running from 16th to 29th May apart from the visual exhibition which will be running from 16th May to the 16th June.

I’ve been very fortunate to be selected as one of the exhibiting artists for this and I’m going to give you a quick sneak peek of the work to be featured in the exhibition.

This artwork is called “Solution” and was created in 2017 especially for this exhibition. I’ve never shown it anywhere else and only a handful of people have seen it so this is an exclusive look at it.

To give you a little context "Solution" is an abstract, surreal self-portrait. I used abstract shapes to represent a wall, brought on by my mental health problems that are vivid but insubstantial. The shapes are bright, small and many but they can be broken down one step at a time, just like any problem.

By bringing mental health awareness into the open we can handle it. Lots of amazing people seem to have had mental health problems and went on to change the world. People like Abraham Lincoln,Charles Dickens, Winston Chuchill and Isaac Newton. So if they can handle it why can’t we?

I’d heartily recommend getting out to an event near you to see what amazing things are going on near you (UK only). If you’re in or about Belfast why not stop by some of the festival events.

If you need any help yourself talk to someone you trust and care about. Or if you’re not comfortable with that get yourself to a doctor or phone a helpline such as the Samaritans or Lifelinehere in Northern Ireland.

Anyway thanks for stopping by.