Category: News and Updates
ASLI Team member and artist Lisa Reeve talks about having mental illness and using art, “I find art a less threatening way to articulate my thoughts and feelings, it is great therapy and gives me a sense of achievement and productivity”.
Joyce Savage is on a mission to end stigma associated with BPD (Borderline Personality Disorder) and uses poetry to manage her own mental health.
Andrea Ballance is a survivor of the Buddhist group NKT and tells ASLI “I have lived through PTSD and RT (religious trauma). I feel that I have something to say that can help people. I feel art in all its facets has an important role to play in an individual’s health and the health of our whole society”.
Esi Yankey speaks to ASLI about domestic violence and PTSD and says “I am firmly committed to speaking up on topics that too many people remain silent on.”
Artist Jessica Caudery “Writing, painting and drawing directly and indirectly became a way to express my emotions. It is difficult to say to what extent art has saved my life but it has been a constant positive, something which has perhaps kept me afloat during times of stress, anxiety and mild depression”.
ASLI Artist Louise Tomkinson states: “to me, “art saves lives” means having the power to use the language of art, as art is strong enough to pull someone back from the brink, therefore becoming the voice which enables art to create change”.
Youth, mental illness and discrimination. A theoretical approach By Becky Saunders
ASLI Team Member Becky Saunders “My journey in a nutshell” – Mental Illness, Health and Recovery
Visual Artist Lynn Excell speaks about grief, depression and staying creative: “‘Art Saves Lives’ to me, means that art is a way of helping to heal us when we are broken”.
ASLI Speak to Artist Mistresslisa Taylor about mental health and art in which she states, “Hand on my heart, art has saved my life. Without it I would be dead”.
Artist Jade Bryant is fiercely tackling her mental illness with art and in the process is changing the world’s awareness of Borderline Personality Disorder and Antisocial Personality Disorder.
Composer and writer Sophie Jupillat talks to ASLI about her experiences with mental illness “Being able to write creatively and play music was a secret garden in my world of chaos and destruction”.
Redoutable by Sophie Jupillat – The Story of a Mother and Daughter and their formidable relationship with mental illness
Debra-Lynn Hook speaks to ASLI about her photography, mental illness and her inspiring mission; The Healing Body Image Project, “If photos help one of our women progress one step forward on her healing path, that is change worth noting”.
Artist Jana Charl believes the statements “art saves lives” and “art creates change” reflect the power of art as both a practice and an impact on society.
Artist Emma Phillips has Borderline Personality Disorder and tells ASLI “my work is hard hitting and I do feel the messages within my work could help create change how others perceive mental illness”.
Poet Tim Evans tells ASLI “Art can be comforting and cathartic. It can also challenge us, in a very visceral way, to look at the world and our attitudes to it in a new light and reconsider our thoughts and actions. In those ways, I think, art can both save lives and create change”.
ASLI Artist Ildiko Nova speaks to us about her thoughts on mental illness and art, saying “My art is my sanctuary where I don’t have to fulfill any social norms or expectations from society.”