Support Hub Opportunity:
1-2-1 Mentoring for Early Career Artists.

About Support Hub

From 2023 - 2026 Arts & Health Hub will be running a project called the Support Hub which is a range of support programmes for artists exploring health and wellbeing in their practice. This includes:

  1. Artists’ peer to peer mental health groups.

  2. Peer to peer professional development groups.

  3. Reflective supervision support for participatory artists.

  4. One-to-one mentoring for early career artists.

This page shows you details about our 1-2-1 mentoring opportunities for early career artists. For other opportunities, click the links above.

Applications now open - Deadline June 23rd @ 5pm

〰️

Applications now open - Deadline June 23rd @ 5pm 〰️

How to Apply

  • Carefully read the information below which outlines more information about the specific opportunity.

  • When you’re ready, scroll down to the bottom of this page and click on the button for each opportunity to open the online application form - this is how you apply.

  • Please note that you can only apply for one opportunity. If you were successful in previous years, you can only apply for a different programme than the one that you participated in.

  • The deadline for applications is June 23rd at 5pm. We are unable to accept applications after this time.

  • Note that as a small project funded organisation we are unable to give feedback for unsuccessful applicants.

Are you unsure if this opportunity is for you?

As a Black and brown, disability majority-led organisation we strongly encourage applicants from: ethnically diverse backgrounds; those with lived experience of ill health, disability and/or neurodivergency; LGBTQIA+ artists; those from low income backgrounds and other underrepresented artists in the arts and health sector to apply. You have to be aged 18+ and UK based to apply.

If you are feeling unsure if this opportunity is for you please do reach out to us for clarification or to have a chat, by contacting info@artsandhealthhub.org. We have set aside short half hour sessions (first come first served) to chat to you about any questions that you may have about the opportunity.

Is there help available for the application process?

Email info@artsandhealthhub.org if you want to discuss this further. Please note, if you need someone to physically fill out the form with you, get in touch as Jennifer can support this. Jennifer is unable to answer the questions on your behalf and would only be supporting with uploading information to the form. If you already have an access worker who knows and communicates with you well, we have a small budget to cover costs of them supporting you with the form.

Travel Support

If your financial situation is a barrier to you travelling to and from in person sessions or you need a support worker/guardian to help you travel and/or to takes notes in sessions, please either contact us for a discussion in advance of your application, or note this in your application. We have a limited access budget available and will do our best to support your needs. Please email info@artsandhealthhub.org.

Can I apply in another way than the online form?

You can also send us an audio or video application, provided that you answer the same applications in the form. You can use a service like WeTransfer to send us your audio/video application, which can be sent to info@artsandhealthhub.org.

Q&A session.

We will be holding an online Q&A session using Zoom on 3rd June, 11am - 12pm, open to anyone who wants to hear more about the programmes and ask questions. You can sign up below. The part of the session of us talking through the programmes will be recorded and will be uploaded to this page afterwards.

Easy Read Documents

Click the links below to open easy read documents for more information about the Support Hub project and the mentoring opportunity.

The Opportunity.

The Arts & Health Hub is offering the opportunity for 5 early career artists exploring health and wellbeing in their practice to receive one to one mentoring.

About Mentoring

Mentoring is when someone shares their skills, experiences and knowledge with another person to support their progression. Through our mentoring programme, over a six month period each mentee will receive support from one of our five professional mentors to explore their current practice and any challenges or obstacles they are facing, with support to develop their confidence and find creative solutions to difficulties. Our mentors are all leaders in the arts and health sector, and each brings a unique perspective on the opportunities and challenges faced by creative practitioners in the field. Read more about our mentors below.

How the Mentoring Works

Mentoring sessions will either take place in person or online (see each mentors’ specific way of working below) and the dates and timings will be agreed between you and your mentor in advance.

Each mentoring session is one hour (unless you both agree), and you’ll meet a maximum of six hours, across a six month period running September 2024 to February 2025.

How you meet your mentor is something that you will agree together, and it will take into consideration your personal circumstances and crip time * (see below), for you and your mentor.

Please note that our mentors are not able to provide psychological or therapeutic support and your sessions will focus on the practical aspects of your work, such as offering support to develop ideas, consider fundraising or social media, or helping you to develop your leadership skills. If you require additional support with your practice which does not fall within the remit of the mentoring agreement, we will try to signpost you to further resources. This may include suggestions for access support for writing funding applications if you are eligible.

* Crip time: A concept arising from disabled experience that addresses the ways that disabled/chronically ill and neurodivergent people experience time (and space) differently than able-bodyminded folk. In her essay on Crip Time, Ellen Samuels quotes her friends Alison Kafer, who says that crip times means: "rather than bend disabled bodies and minds to meet the clock, crip time bends the clock to meet disabled bodies and minds."

Meet the Mentors

Daniel Regan

Daniel Regan is a visual artist specialising in the exploration of complex and difficult emotional experiences, focusing on the transformational impact of arts on mental health, building on his own lived experiences.

Over the last 20 years his creative works have brokered dialogues around taboo topics such as mental health, grief, self injury, suicide and racism, through the lens of his intersectional identities as a queer and disabled person of Black and white mixed heritage.

As a part of his creative practice Daniel works on commissions, produces and delivers socially engaged projects and provides consultancy on Creative Health work. Daniel regularly exhibits and speaks at events across fine art, educational and clinical institutions in the UK and worldwide, alongside teaching at both art and medical institutions.

Daniel is the Founder and Creative Lead at Arts & Health Hub.

Find out more about Daniel:

What Daniel can help with:

  • Navigating making work about personal experiences.

  • Considering how to support yourself in making work about lived experience, or working in challenging environments.

  • How to approach funding applications for your work.

  • Understanding the landscape of arts & health.

  • How you talk or write about your creative practice.

  • Starting your own community or small arts organisation.

  • How to design, fund and deliver socially engaged projects.

  • Thinking about multiple income streams for your creative practice.

What Daniel is less able to help with:

  • Technical support in other mediums outside of photography.

  • Getting representation with a gallery.

  • Essay writing or academic connections / references.

How Daniel can mentor:

  • In person, in London, preferably at Daniel’s studio (based in South London), but can do online too.

  • Daniel’s mentor must be living in London (this is a condition of one of our funders).

 

Bakita Kasha

Bakita Kasadha is an award-winning poet and health researcher living with HIV. She uses her creativity as a tool for advocacy and to share research findings. Bakita has performed internationally. She has also been commissioned for the Sainsbury’s Group, inaugral National Stephen Lawrence Day; her poetry was recently published in Issue 112 of Wasafiri Magazine. 

She is interested in the use of arts-based methods in health research. She has delivered a module on Poetic Inquiry as part of the Oxford University Qualitative Research Methods course.

Find out more about Bakita:

What Bakita can help with:

  • Supporting anyone from racially marginalised communities - especially Black and Brown women.

  • Supporting an artist specifically living in London;

  • Guiding someone interested in poetry, health research and/or using creative methods in health research or health advocacy.

  • Exploring how you use your lived (health) experience in your work while establishing boundaries to protect your peace and reduce the risk of emotional trauma.

  • Establishing cross-industry links and exploring interdisciplinary ways of working.

  • Establishing and using your art as a form of advocacy. 

  • Building general confidence in your voice as a poet.

  • Developing approaches to raising your profile and establishing your ‘brand’ (as daunting as that word might be)!

What Bakita is less able to help with:

  • Emotional/therapeutic support around processing or accepting your own health diagnosis (if applicable);

  • Developing technical skills in non-poetic art mediums.

How Bakita can mentor:

  • Online or in person, in London;

  • Bakita’s mentor must be living in London (this is a condition of one of our funders).

 

Jennifer Gilbert

Jennifer is a Manchester-based gallerist, freelance producer, and curator, working with self-taught, disabled, neurodivergent, deaf and overlooked artists. In 2017 she launched Jennifer Lauren Gallery to showcase and empower artists internationally, having previously managed a national arts charity for under-represented artists. Through her work, Jennifer hopes to: demystify what is regarded as art, continue to challenge the stigma surrounding this field, and to re-look at how work is displayed and written about. 

In her freelance role, Jennifer helps disabled, deaf and neurodivergent artists with their professional development, alongside providing mentoring and other support. Jennifer also does consultancy work alongside galleries, museums and organisations.

More about Jennifer:

What Jennifer can help with:

  • How to navigate the art world.

  • Assessing your work against each other and pulling out the stronger works.

  • Looking at ways to develop your practice.

  • Writing an artist statement and/or writing about your work.

  • Looking at how you promote yourself, including with using Instagram.

  • Writing funding applications as an individual.

  • Introducing you to other relevant/similar artists.

  • Looking at opportunities that are out there and seeing if they are a good fit, whilst also looking at which ones may not be so good or be more exploitative for artists.

Jennifer is less able to help with:

  • Providing support around very specific areas, such as you wanting to learn and connect more with one specific type of artist, e.g. just neurodivergent artists, and other mentors may be more suited to this.

  • Although Jennifer runs a gallery she cannot represent everyone that she meets and/or talk to, so please do not assume this is a possibility.

  • Jennifer is less knowledgeable about contemporary photography and sculpture based artists and practices related to this - and other mentors may be more suited to this.

How Jennifer can mentor:

  • In person, in Manchester (and sometimes in London);

  • Online for national applicants.

 

Sonia Boué

Sonia Boué is an Anglo-Spanish artist based in the UK. She has a performative and responsive multiform visual arts practice. Sonia has extensive experience of supporting and mentoring neurodivergent creatives, both through her own project work and on behalf of arts organisations. She is a specialist in neuro-inclusive art practice.

More about Sonia:

What Sonia can help with:

  • Working responsively and relationally in a person centred and holistic way.

  • Sonia specialises in neuro-inclusive project design and grant applications, and supporting artists with the challenges of navigating the arts as neurodivergent people.

  • Sonia is practiced in working flexibly to offer bespoke access solutions.

  • Sonia’s focus is to nurture confident identification with neurodivergent identity. 

Sonia is less able to help with:

  • Supporting artists with conventional networking support - though she can offer neurodivergent alternatives.

  • Support mainstream 'career' artists to 'break through' to next tier opportunities. 

How Sonia can mentor:

  • Online for national applicants.

  • Sometimes in person, in Oxford.

 

Anna Woolf

Anna Woolf FRSA is London Arts and Health’s CEO. Anna has lived experience of birth trauma and has worked with UCH maternity (2018) Tea and Toast: Poems for New Mums, Maternal Journal Maternal Journal (2021) and The Mum Poem Press (2021) Songs of Love and Strength exploring this topic. Anna is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts and a member of the Royal Society of Public Health. She is a trustee for the National Rheumatoid Arthritis Society which was founded by her own Mother who has RA, 21 years ago as a patient-led charity, supporting people living with Arthritis, a trustee for Clod Ensemble supporting in particular the Performing Medicine strand as well as a trainee for The Wren Project, a socially prescribing listening service for newly-diagnosed people with autoimmune disorders.

More about Anna:

What Anna can help with:

  • Project management of creative health activities.

  • Building a project plan and the nuts and bolts of this.

  • Creative health networks and finding partnerships.

  • Working with NHS and VCSE (voluntary and community sector) structures in and around London.

  • Creative health and motherhood, menopause and chronic health conditions, intersections of invisible disability and health and performance, being a carer and a practitioner, balance, burnout and boundaries.

  • Work focused on Applied Theatre, participatory arts and/or poetry.

  • Marketing and branding your creative health work.

  • Research (to PhD level), policy design and evaluation.

Anna is less able to help with:

  • Visual arts and/or dance practices.

  • Commercial gallery support.

  • Working in complex settings such as acute care and hospital arts.

How Anna can mentor:

  • Online for national applicants.

  • For London applicants Anna can also meet in person at London Arts & Health office (which she can offer her mentee to work in or access for free as part of the package).

 

We’d like to thank Emma Nutland for being one of our mentors for year 1 of the Support Hub!

Eligibility.

This opportunity is open to:

  • Artists aged 18 and above (there is no upper limit), based in the UK.

  • Early career artists that are exploring health and wellbeing in their practice and working in any creative medium. By early career we mean that you must be in the first 5 combined years of your creative practice, regardless of age. We accept and acknowledge that some people may have interruptions in their creative career due to illness, child raising and other life experiences. If your 5 year career has been over an extended period of time please briefly explain that in your application so that we can understand why.

  • You can be freelance/self-employed or working in another role (in the arts or not), provided that you can commit to the sessions you agree with your mentor.

  • Those applying to be mentored by Daniel Regan or Bakita Kasadha must be based in London.

What Makes a Good Application?

The criteria that we use to look at applications is as follows:

  • That you are eligible for the opportunity (see above), for example that you are based in London for the London groups.

  • That your practice explores health and wellbeing in some form.

  • That you clearly describe your practice so that we understand who you are as an artist.

  • That you clearly state your challenges, and how the mentoring would support you, given the limited time available.

  • That you match with the mentor’s skillset.

Frequently Asked Questions.

If you have questions that are not answered below then please email us at info@artsandhealthhub.org. We may be able to support you with a short phone call/Zoom to answer questions too. We have limited 30 minute slots so please do contact us to check for availability.

 

  • The Arts & Health Hub supports artists that explore health, wellbeing and what it means to be human. This could be:

    • making work about your own experiences of health and illness, or issues around identity.

    • working creatively with communities whose physical and mental health may be affected by illness / societal oppression / health inequalities etc.

    If you are still unsure and would like to have a brief chat with us to clarify, please email info@artsandhealthhub.org.

  • Our mentoring opportunities are for early career artists. By early career we mean artists within the first 5 combine years of your creative practice, regardless of your age and when/if you’ve graduated from art school. We’re looking to support artists with great ideas to push their practices forward.

  • Email info@artsandhealthhub.org if you want to discuss this further. Please note, if you need someone to physically fill out the form with you, get in touch as Jennifer can support this. Jennifer is unable to answer the questions on your behalf and would only be supporting with uploading information to the form. If you already have an access worker who knows and communicates with you well, we have a small budget to cover costs of them supporting you with the form.

  • Due to some of our project’s funding coming from London funders, only artists based in London are able to apply for mentoring with Bakita or Daniel.

  • Yes.

  • The deadline for all opportunities in round 2 is 5pm on 23rd June 2024. We are unable to accept applications after this.

  • We know that we will receive more applications than we are able to offer places for.

    Our panel actively look at curating groups that have a diverse set of participants, meaning that we do not select people with the most experience, but people from a variety of backgrounds that would benefit from this opportunity.

    Three people will be making the selections. These will be:

    • Daniel Regan: Artist & Executive Director, Arts & Health Hub

    • Jennifer Gilbert: Gallerist & Freelance Producer and Curator

    • Mariama Attah: Curator: Touring & Loans at Autograph APB

    Applications will be shortlisted by the above and then individual mentors will make the final selection.

  • We will let you know if you have been selected or not. This will be between 22nd - 26th July.

  • Due to our small team who work part-time, we are unable to provide feedback if you are not selected.

  • No. We ask that you select the one mentor that you would like to be mentored by. Please note that only people living in London can select to be mentored by Daniel or Bakita.

  • No. You can only apply for one opportunity from the 4 opportunities. We encourage you to think about what feels most important to you and relevant to your practice development.

  • No. This opportunity is only open to UK based artists aged 18 and above.

  • If you were successful last year you can apply - but only for a different programme than the one you participated in.

Submit an Application.

  • Read through about each of the mentors above and select the mentor you would like to work with (note: only artists living in London can apply to be mentored by Daniel or Bakita)

  • Click the button below to open the application form.

  • The deadline is 5pm on 23rd June 2024.

  • We cannot accept submissions after this date.

You can also send us an audio or video application, provided that you answer the same applications in the form. You can use a service like WeTransfer to send us your audio/video application, which can be sent to info@artsandhealthhub.org.

Thank you.

The Support Hub is generously supported by Arts Council England, Baring Foundation and the Greater London Authority.