“Phenomenology is the philosophical study of objectivity and reality (more generally) as subjectively lived and experienced.
It seeks to investigate the universal features of consciousness while avoiding assumptions about the external world, aiming to describe phenomena as they appear to the subject, and to explore the meaning and significance of the lived experiences.“ (Sokolowski, Robert (1999). Introduction to Phenomenology. Cambridge University Press.)
What do we mean by lived experience? Can lived experience be thought of in a different way, perhaps as a form of alternative intelligence? What if we considered our lived experiences not just as something that are often the result of distress or illness, but as unique insights and knowledge that enable us to show others what it means to feel how we feel and live how we live?
As part of Creativity & Wellbeing Week in 2024 we will be hosting a film screening night of up to 10 short films that explore lived experiences of mental health. This event is part of our commitment to supporting artists that are exploring lived experience in their work, prompting dialogues around physical and mental health and how the arts can help us both serve as a form of individual creative expression and better understand the lives of others.
See below for information about each of the artist’s films (more to be added).
This event is open to all - artists of all backgrounds, patients and carers with lived experience, clinicians and anyone with an interest in personal narratives through film.
About the Films
Our selection panel for the open call:
Daniel Regan - Artist / Arts & Health Hub Founder & Creative Lead
Hannah Ali - Psychiatrist & Royal College of Psychiatrists Arts Special Interest Group Member
Adam Hines-Green - Artist & psychiatrist
Click below to read about each of the artist’s films.
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If you like soup and the Gounod arrangement of J.S. Bach's Prelude in C Major, then you'll love this short animation. In this work, Asquith explores the use of soup in assuaging anxiety, as soup becomes a safe food for her in times of stress and mental distress.
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‘Tender Loving Care’ (Straight8 version) is a film about connection in the literal and metaphorical sense – daily interactions chart the sense of loneliness and concerns of one individual. It’s a meditation on a sense of belonging. The main character rings various customer care lines in search of connection, pushing the boundaries of people she speaks with. Call centres become a backdrop for conversations about the meaning of life, mental health and big city loneliness.
The film was commissioned for a Straight8 Shootout and premiered at the Cannes Film Festival in 2022. It was shot on one roll of Super8 film, with no editing and a ‘blind’ soundtrack created separately with no preview of the film, following the Straight8 competition rules. An extended version of the film (20 minutes), shot on 16mm and Super8, featuring extended dialogues and original score, is being screened in the festival circuit.
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Filmed by Kelly O'Brien during my 2022 residency at Snape Maltings, 'Peter' is the story of how my mother, on her deathbed, finally found the courage to tell me who my father was.
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"The Spiral is a key scene from my Arts Council England funded film ‘Oscillations’, which conveys the extreme emotions experienced in bipolar disorder through movement, music, spoken word and photography. Using Bipolar UK’s mood scale as a framing device for the journey, The Spiral portrays ’10’, or full blown mania - specifically the physical and mental anguish during the spiralling phase, often described as like being on the train running out of control.
This version was re-edited with the choreographer and dancer Manon Servage to better reflect her vision/interpretation of the music.
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Goosebumps is a tryptic video instillation, which explored Nicola’s own healing journey after cancer treatment and subsequent hysterectomy. Nicola took to foraging and wild swimming as a way to realign and heal her broken body during the covid lockdowns. Recording her journey became a cathartic act of reclaim, where both her mental and physical health soared.
‘To say I had fallen out with my body was understatement to say the least. It had tried to take me away from my young children, not allowed me the simplest bodily functions and I had actually endured what felt to be my last ever breath. As I grieve my old body, I feel a sense of loss. A loss of femininity, a de-sexualisation and a lack of maternity. Watching my goosebumps in this moment gave me a glimmer of hope for what the future could hold, and a realisation that my body wasn’t the enemy after all.’
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Somewhere between a memory and a dream, filmmaker David Alexander explores the 24-hours that followed the passing of his father. Phoenix both recounts and reflects on the highly emotional experience through a creative use of sound and image.
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I was learning about the word ‘wintering’ through Katherine May’s book when I started to pick up my Super8, trying to reflect on time, the seasonal changes and how ‘wintering’ comes and goes regardless of the seasons. Part 1 (2023) was the first chapter of an ongoing series that is about my own experience with mental health and losing sense of time. The sound is very abrupt; noisy, silent, some words in between.
Part 2 (2024) was shot exactly one year later, mainly during a residency in the South of Spain this winter. I was about to get confronted with another loss of a loved one, which made me question when and why ‘wintering’ might befall us. Therefore part 2 is about the season of collective grieving and the places we find ourselves in regardless of the destination on earth.
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In this experimental moving image piece Anna's body becomes a landscape from which we learn about her mental health experiences. The Life Model is an exploration of her choice to become a life model and celebrate the stories of her scars by posing nude for artists.
Caution: Themes discussed/explored may be upsetting or triggering to some viewers including self-harm and a suicide attempt.
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As a young man, Ben fell into a world of visions, voices and becomings; navigating psychosis and isolation and questioning the nature of reality.
Ben’s Story follows his recovery journey, exploring his relationships with the urban melee, self advocacy, poetry and music. Combining abstract, hallucinogenic imagery and Ben’s accounts of his time in a psychiatric ward, the film also acts as a love letter to the natural world, a place of inspiration, connection and self awareness.
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Welter’ is an artists’ moving image work, made by Victoria Gray & Sam Williams.
The work explores Victoria’s embodied experience of being autistic, as well as the interoceptive experience of her co-occurring mental health conditions; anxiety, dissociation and complex PTSD.
The film is an attempt to communicate the invisible, phenomenological dimension of Victoria’s experience of neurodiversity, in order to demonstrate the rich kinaesthetic and psychic intelligences that spring from that inner world.
Event Outline:
7pm - Doors open
7.30pm - Films start (first half)
8.10pm - Comfort break
8.35pm - Films continue (second half)
9.15pm - Films conclude & time to chat
10pm - Close
Cost.
Pay What You Can (suggested donation: £5) / Free
A Note on Self Care:
This event will be involve the screening of personal films focusing on lived experience of mental health. We urge you to consider how to self-resource what you may need before, during and after the session in order to feel psychologically safe. If you need to leave the screening to take care of yourself, please do. It may also be helpful to consider coming with someone to discuss content that is shared. We expect this event to be oversubscribed so if you are unable to attend, please let us know, so that we can free up a ticket to someone on the waitlist.