This event will take place online. Click here to sign up.

About the session

This workshop will explore the use of memes as a form of communication and resistance – a means of expressing our thoughts, feelings and experiences in humorous but also poignant ways. We will draw upon existing memes for inspiration and discussion, before using meme generator websites to create our own!

The workshop will be facilitated by Fiona Malpass who is the Hearing Voices Project Manager at Mind in Camden, as well as a freelance speaker and trainer. They come from a place of lived experience and enjoy finding creative and provocative ways to give voice to people’s experiences.

You will need:

• The workshop will be held online by zoom, so technology to access online meetings is required. Use of a computer can for some, feel more useable in terms of navigating multiple windows and tabs (e.g. zoom and a web browser for meme generator websites), however, people are very welcome to join on mobile devices if they prefer.

Note: This session is aimed at those who are aged 18+.

This event will take place online. Click here to sign up.

What might be possible if we were able to think creatively about responses to self-harm? What does it mean to build solidarity and care among those of us with lived experience? 

Led by the Make Space team, we’ll blend reflections and creative prompts to think about what it means to show up for each other and our own experiences, in the face of systems of “care” that often cause more harm than good. 

We’ll be drawing on the themes of the programme as a whole, celebrating Mad Art, Mad Togetherness, and Mad Imagination. 

As always, there is no pressure to talk about your own experiences. You are welcome to join anonymously and to make decisions about how you do and do not want to participate in the space.  

You will need:

• Whichever materials excite you/you have to hand! Pens, pencils, laptops, collaging kits, paints etc. 

Note: This session is aimed at those 18+.

This event will take place online. Click here to sign up.

This workshop will take you through a process for creating cartoons with strong characterisation which assumes absolutely no artistic training or talent (although if you have existing artistic skills you are also very welcome). Rachel Rowan Olive is a researcher and artist/illustrator/zine-maker whose first zines were stick figure cartoons about the mental health system; she then expanded to stick figures of her other major obsession, dogs. Come along to test the boundaries of the form for telling your own stories or sharing your own special interests.

This workshop will be run by Rachel Rowan Olive (she/her) @rrowanolive on socials / https://rachelrowanolive.etsy.com / https://www.rachelrowanolive.com

You will need:

• Pen or pencil

• Paper

Note: This session is aimed at those 18+.

This event will take place online. Click here to sign up.

Hi everyone. My name is Robin (they/them), I'm a gender-queer Art Psychotherapist and Artist based in Bristol. I use art to support people with their well-being and mental health challenges alongside creating my own artwork. My art is often a playful exploration of my current mood, explored through a variety of art materials and tools. In this workshop we will play with and combine different collaging techniques to create magical new worlds...

You will need:**

• Collaging materials (magazines, newspapers, old cards/books, wrapping paper, fabric etc.)

• Glue (pritt-stick or something stronger if working with fabric)

• Scissors and paper

• Pens.

• If doing a digital collage I'd recommend using Adobe Express. https://www.adobe.com/express/ and use the free version.

**We have a small budget to send participants materials for this workshop in the post. Details of how to request materials will be in the sign up email.

Note: This session is aimed at those 18+.

This event will take place online. Click here to sign up.

In this workshop, we’ll be exploring different ways of being drawn to, through, and by the places and spaces that surround us. This workshop is a chance to speak to the spaces and places that we are pulled to and provoked by. We’ll be exploring how poetry and writing more broadly might respond to how we move in the world around us – both the physical world that we can see and touch and the emotional or online worlds that exist in our hearts, our minds, and our devices! As people who have self-harmed, we’ll consider what our surroundings might mean to us and how our poetry can express those intangible connections. We’ll be letting go of directions about how to move in a given space, of feelings of ‘should’ and ‘ought’ and releasing ourselves from the pressure to make progress and be productive. We’ll ignore false ideas of skill or training, and prioritise what words can do for us, and how our writing can feel joyous, caring, and meaningful. This workshop will involve responding to prompts in whichever way feels most comfortable and significant in that moment, in any way that might mean.

This workshop will be facilitated by Cat (they/them). Cat is a poet and publisher who loves thinking about unusual ways of using words and what words can do for us. Their debut collection 712 stanza homes for the sun was published in 2023 by Broken Sleep Books with their most recent collection Dear Lettera 32 being recently published by Permeable Barrier. They're @marbledmayhem on Twitter, Instagram, and BlueSky.

You will need:

• Pen or pencil

• Something to write on

• A laptop/tablet if you’d rather type than write

Note: This session is aimed at those 18+.

This event will take place online. Click here to sign up.

As those with experience of self-harm, we may be seen as so outside of what lies in the territory of acceptable human experience that we inhabit symbolic no-go zones. We queer things, we seem difficult, resistant, outside the lines, despite efforts to mould, fit, pass, belong. This is a workshop for the word-shy, and the wordsmiths, the curious and ambivalent, to come and string together letters to reach each other, ourselves, outwards, and to say in a language that befits us what we wish to say in that moment. Come as you are, in the way that you need. The workshop will involve responding as you chose to open and flexible prompts. You will be welcome to participate as much or as little as you wish, to share or not, you will be met gladly. 

Louisa (she/her) is a tutor/facilitator, boat-rocker, survivor, escapologist, therapist, learner and AuDHD seeker of joy and potato smiles.

You will need:

• Pen/pencil

• Paper

• Or something to type on, if you’d rather write that way.