104272/Z/14/Z: The Artful Experts Season

Project Summary:Artful Experts Season is a pilot public engagement programme of exhibitions, music, events and live performances by people with lived experience of mental distress. Curated by arts and mental health charity DLL, the programme will bring together expert collaborators from the fields of mental health, digital media and the arts to explore methods of public engagement, with a view to a larger scale World Mental Health Day 2015 programme. Our Steering Group, Advisory Panel and Creative Collaborato r team will work with an external Evaluator to direct and shape public engagement, evaluative and data gathering methodology; test and critique processes during the programme; and develop material into assets that can inform future public engagement methodology. A two-minute film and formal Evaluation document will be publically shared. Public engagement will be driven by accessible exhibitions and live shows, social media and web activity, including an online animated serial narrated by comic character Dr Bobby. The vibrant programme will culminate in the Artful Symposium. This unusual artist-led event at the Royal Society of Medicine will present invited mental health audiences with art and performances by people with personal experience of mental illness. The aim is that this unique context of a shared mediating experience of art will form the basis for reflection and fresh dialogue around mental health in this historically fraught and polarised field. DLL believes that art can off er a transformative basis for public engagement with mental health, where experts by experience work together with experts by profession.

Grant Holder:Bobby Baker

Organisation:Daily Life Ltd

Financial Year:2013/2014