Artwork Overviews (The Blurbs)
Descriptions and explanations of some of the pieces and their messages, in the artists' own words.
Welcome to Messages from the HeART
This page has been created to provide some context to the artwork that may be seen at any of our exhibitions.
Due to the grassroots nature of the project (ie shortage of capacity, funding and IT skills) it is rudimentary, a bit gappy, and in no particular order, and may not have been entirely updated :)
Some artists have chosen not to provide an overview, preferring that their pieces are experienced viscerally. Please take some time to "tune in" and feel your response to each piece, noticing what resonates with you, rather than rushing to find intellectual meaning.
(The artworks can vary from one exhibition to the next, so you may not encounter all of those featured below.)
The artists welcome you into our various worlds and ask that you visit with a loving heart, and honour these pieces.
The time, courage, generosity, wisdom, hope, pain and healing that have gone into them cannot be quantified.
Please don't leave an exhibition without giving feedback via the postcards and comments available, to show the artists that our messages are being heard, further help with our healing journeys, and support us in attracting funding for future projects. If you view the artworks via the website, please send feedback to [email protected] or [email protected].
Due to the grassroots nature of the project (ie shortage of capacity, funding and IT skills) it is rudimentary, a bit gappy, and in no particular order, and may not have been entirely updated :)
Some artists have chosen not to provide an overview, preferring that their pieces are experienced viscerally. Please take some time to "tune in" and feel your response to each piece, noticing what resonates with you, rather than rushing to find intellectual meaning.
(The artworks can vary from one exhibition to the next, so you may not encounter all of those featured below.)
The artists welcome you into our various worlds and ask that you visit with a loving heart, and honour these pieces.
The time, courage, generosity, wisdom, hope, pain and healing that have gone into them cannot be quantified.
Please don't leave an exhibition without giving feedback via the postcards and comments available, to show the artists that our messages are being heard, further help with our healing journeys, and support us in attracting funding for future projects. If you view the artworks via the website, please send feedback to [email protected] or [email protected].
The continuation of this project is dependent on donations. Please help
by donating via BACs transfer.
Thank you!
BE AWARE - Some of these images have been inspired by distressing or disturbing experiences and may evoke emotional responses in those viewing them. Some contain profanity/swear-words.
If you'd like to know more about Hope in the Heart and our work, please visit www.hopeintheheart.org.
by donating via BACs transfer.
Thank you!
BE AWARE - Some of these images have been inspired by distressing or disturbing experiences and may evoke emotional responses in those viewing them. Some contain profanity/swear-words.
If you'd like to know more about Hope in the Heart and our work, please visit www.hopeintheheart.org.
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The HeART of SANCTUARY Hope in the Heart's Wandsworth Women's Group This piece explores what seeking and finding 'Sanctuary' means to the women in the group. Hope in the Heart's Women's Group at BAC brings refugees and asylum seekers together with other local women to create a safe environment of respect, compassion and mutual support in which to share stories and create art with a message for people in power. Seeking to raise awareness, through these messages from lived experience, and be heard by service providers, commissioners and other local leaders. Asylum Seeker by Forough Piroozi Instagram forough_piroozi Life is the basic need that drives us to move forward in our search for our lost humanity in our country. No-one chooses to be an asylum seeker for no reason. The asylum seeker reached the stage of suffocation and lost himself in a place that did not respect his humanity and his simplest rights. In this painting the single face bears many different aspects with which I clarify that the asylum seeker, regardless of colour, lineage or origin, remains his main concern to risk his life in the journey of searching for life is his existance as a human being who has full rights and rejects injustice. And this is the main reason for me to be in the UK I am a girl, I am an asylum seeker, I am a person looking for a life worthy of any free person. Basic rights, justice that rejects injustice, equal opportunities, a healthy life and a bright future. She crossed the boarder, leaving her roots, her memories, a whole life, holding her soul injuries with her. Searching for the real life , real home. A home which gives her safety, her existence and her importance as a WOMAN. |
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Wandsworth Welcomes Refugees Individuals and community groups across the borough have created the Wandsworth Sanctuary Banner, carrying the ‘Our Home’ theme of Refugee Week 2024. The fabric banner features a ‘river’ of more than 50 local groups and everyone who supports the vision that Wandsworth be a place of safety for all; where sanctuary seekers are welcomed, respected, and included, and their contribution valued. Workshops were held in libraries, churches, theatres and cafés and more than 120 images of what ‘Our Home’ means to us were painted, stitched, embroidered and appliquéd on the ‘stones’ alongside the river. The banner has been on display at Battersea Arts Centre, the Sanctuary and Arts Weekend at All Saints Church, Tooting Library, Wandsworth Town Hall and the House of Commons. and shared inschool assemblies. See Past the Masks by Ami-Mai McKenna Ami-Mai @whoisamimai 1 Three second timer My first self portrait, it’s capturing a moment of disassociation when I tried to take a photo and left the planet before the timer went off. Blank on the outside, infinite on the inside. 2 Prone to intrusive thoughts I’m trying to illustrate the strain of maintaining a mask for everyone around me while the battle rages within. 3 Welcome to the masked ball Look past the glittery mask and your own reflection to see the chaos inside. I’d urge service providers to see past the masks we’ve been forced to create. (From organisers: look through the holes in the ball! ) |
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Patient and Psychiatrist by Kali "Are you listening?" Snakes and Ladders by Kali A journey through crisis and recovery |
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Nicole Lacey https://outsidein.org.uk/galleries/nicole-lacey/ Artist Instagram: @lacey_art Having been in (and having to leave due to my health) traditional art education, art therapy, as well as lived experience groups and ‘outsider’/mad art circles, I have struggled to find where my work as an artist fits.My experiences of psychiatric treatment and trauma heavily influence much of my work, moving into activism and sharing lived experiences of poor mental health treatment. There isn’t a media I wouldn’t try – from technical drawing to film photography, embroidery to lino prints, I couldn’t define my practice with a particular method or style. Discovering Truth
through Conflicting Perception by Emily Burfoot Every time I was sectioned I felt it was because my perception of reality wasn't shared by the psychiatrist who was assessing me. This exhibit is designed to show how "The Truth" (represented by the cylinder-shaped pill) is a combination of the "psychotic truth" (circular shadow) AND the "sane truth" (square shadow). I strongly believe that healing takes place when the truth is found, and the truth accommodates both the sane and the psychotic truth equally. An image of Sanctuary by Rima Begum |
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No compassion in coercion, No sanctuary in a cage by Rose Lidgley When I desperately needed compassion and care, to be kept safe, to regain my bodily autonomy and to heal, Mental health services ripped me from the arms of loved ones, punished me for how I’d learnt to cope, restrained me when I struggled, drugged me when I cried, bruised my skin, stripped my clothes, spat harsh words, and, like my past abusers, forced me into submission. I found no sanctuary in psychiatry's coercive, carceral system, Only sanctuary trauma. |
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Living with a Broken Brain then Breathing by Sophie Coxon Images of what it feels like. When you have tried everything, when you feel broken and like you can’t be helped because the medication isn’t working. That appointment that you have been clawing towards in hope of help and being seen, you are told to do some exercise and “up the dosage” and not asked anything. Just side-effects. Years and years. A new trial of a therapy at SLAM with a compassionate psychologist, guided and listened. The start of hope, and eventually, lasting change. |
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Photographing Autism Nigel Maynard https://nigelmaynard.weebly.com/ The abstract contents of these images seem to be a reflection of the neurologically untypical mind trying to grasp an unfamiliar reality and failing. In the making of them I have felt I found a way to be myself, to escape the pressure of the normal world, and that probably the images themselves seem odd in the same ways that I am odd; they are awkward and hard to understand, they are off to one side in an isolated corner, outsiders; though, they are just what they are and nothing more, and because of being abstractions they consistently surprise me when I make them... www.nigelmaynard.weebly.com |
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ADHD 2 sides by Fenna May 1 Everything colourful and positively chaotic, a million things happening at once. 2 Overwhelm – when the chaos gets too much I need to curl up and ground myself. Storytellers
by Fenna May Many indigenous cultures respond very differently to mental health crises than we do in the West, seeing them as a sign of special powers and a calling to grow. In the film Crazywise, human rights photographer and film maker Phil Borges draws some startling comparisons between attitudes and support in different cultures. https://crazywisefilm.com |
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So Here I Am... by Nanou I COULD NEVER EXPRESS THE MESS I FELT INSIDE A MOTHER WHO COULDN’T AND A DAD WHO THOUGHT HE COULD DO ANYTHING HE FELT TO A BABY ‘WITH NO FEELINGS’ TURNED HIS DAUGHTER INTO A LOVER THERE WAS NO THERAPY I AM STILL SHAKING. CREATIVITY AND NATURE ARE PART OF THE HEALING. SO HERE AM I… STILL SHOCKED. LIFE-LONG DEATH. THIS IS THE LAST TABOO: SILENCED. ASSAULTS BY PARENT, SIBLING, UNCLE ETC. PLEASE SET UP A SAFE PLACE FOR SUCH PEOPLE TO COME TO BE HEARD, IN COMPASSION. BREAK THE CYCLE OF ABUSE. RESTORE THE CIRCLE OF FAMILY TRUST, LET EACH CHILD BECOME THEIR FULLY BEAUTIFUL CREATIVE SELF. |
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Dwayne H There is a social responsibility to take care of others, which starts with taking care of ourselves and our own wellbeing, so we can be the best version of ourselves for us and those around us. Images of Santuary by refugee artists Anonymous Befriending Madness - a collection by Tam Martin Fowles 1 You Don’t Want to be Helped and 2 How Can I Help? In 1989 I plunged suddenly into an experience, labelled "psychosis" that upended my life. My psychiatrist prescribed medication and referred me to an old, asylum-type “mental hospital”. When I refused both (knowing with certainty that to accept would be catastrophic for me) he told me I did not want to be helped. No alternative support was offered. I came close to suicide before a brief, compassionate encounter with another psychiatrist (a young woman many years his junior) turned my life around and set me on the path to recovery, with help from an NHS therapeutic community - now long decomissioned. 33 years on I remain certain that I intuitively knew what I needed - and what I absolutely didn't need. It is vital that service providers encourage, listen to and act upon the intuitive wisdom of people in crisis. (Here is a short, personally-illustrated video-story of my two very different encounters with psychiatrists.) 3 The Creative Adult Don’t give me drugs and diagnoses; give me paints and paper and pastels, poetry, scissors and glue and clay and time and space to create and play… 4 Walking with Myselves When emerging from madness, my greatest healing and growth came from transpersonal therapy (at an untenable financial cost to me). I learned about archetypes and sub-personalities, how they related to my voices and visions, and how to mediate, befriend, nurture and love them. This painting was a journey, developing over months. Bear protects my wounded inner child so she can run forward without fear. I walk between them, balanced and whole. Imagine a system in which the therapies that most resonate with our individual needs and offer the greatest personal healing are available at no cost... 5 Meet Me Where I Am When I am in the pit of despair, please don’t expect me to climb out and join you in in your reality, or drug me and suspend me in a limbo somewhere in-between. Be curious, and brave enough to join me in the darkness; to radiate compassion and show me that it’s safe to venture out. 6 Big Girl Pants This piece accompanies a poem, inspired by the Psychiatric Social Worker who continually berated me with judgemental chliches when I was at my lowest. PULL YOUR SOCKS UP (Things not to say to someone with a BPD diagnosis - or anyone really...) You need to pull your socks up. Count your blessings. Get a grip. Just find yourself a good job and a nice relationship. Before long you’ll be wondering why you made this silly fuss. It’s time to wear your big girl pants. Be like the rest of us. Haul yourself up by the bootstraps. Make an effort. Keep your head. Find a hobby. Join a book club. Do a painting. Bake some bread. Stop bringing everybody down;your company’s depressing. We’d like you so much more if you were bright and effervescing. Stand on your own two feet now - your self-pity really rankles and we’d all be much more comfy if your socks weren’t round your ankles. TMF September 2013 amended May 2024 |
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Racism and Discrimination in Mental Health Services by Dele Fagunwa/HITH To people working in mental health: You have to address the society you live in because, as it evolves, it includes more people, and back-stories. You need to change the view in society, otherwise there will always be indiscrepancies… (See the short video “Mental Health, Race and Alligator bait” narrated and illustrated by Dele Quotes and statistics on the artwork are from Mind and NHS Providers Bird Cage by Anonymous A reflection on Domestic Violence Akane Hiraoka http://akamidget.com 1 A Mosaic of the Mind's Eye ...an exploration of the psyche, where each fragment embodies a thought, emotion, or distant memory. Within the depths of consciousness, shards of dreams and recollections intertwine, shaping the mind’s ever-evolving landscape. 2 Fragmented Psyche A mind in flux as memories, emotions, and identities dissolve and reform. Fragmented Psyche captures the struggle of self-perception, where consciousness melts into chaos, shaping and reshaping the essence of being. |
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Human Rights by Josephine Apira Leaving home Crossing bridge Climbing mountain Refugee. Keeping my story inside was a recurring nightmare, one of many refugee experiences. If you cannot share your story, you cannot address it and begin a new chapter. I know my mother and father did not receive a proper burial and I know the people I left behind, village people, people I know, were killed too. There is too much trauma in the community to process, finding a way of showing, telling and communicating my story to those who listen can help me to navigate through and take care of myself. The message I would like to deliver by sharing my painting is one that aims to ignite courage in the hearts and minds of all refugees struggling to tell their story |
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Fragmented Belonging
by Ismail Moussa People don't become refugees by choice. However, once they become they belong to the place where they found safety as much as the place they come from.
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The search for freedom is a search for light
A journey to somewhere and nowhere. by John Obalim |
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Getting to the right place by Kobi Frimpong I Like to Draw Squids at Different Stages Passion means to me self-feeling; Living for the Story. To talk up. To be able to reflect to a generation. Changemaking. gather Change Makers. To be able to relate to Someone. |
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A collection
by Anonymous The Robe I had a course of therapy with an incredible woman, Zoe, at my local rape crisis service. She helped me get to a place where I could accept, be angry, feel again, cry. Where I could challenge the terrible things that the abuse had left me with, the ideas I had about myself as a result of it and the subsequent fall out and re-traumatisation that happens when you report this to the police and have to 'come clean' to your family and friends. It felt very important that I create something that represented the way therapy had helped me to feel. I wanted Zoe to know how strong I felt and for her to be able to see how she had helped me beyond my sending a "thank you" card. I also wrote some stuff down. I'm not sure if I wanted to write to the other warriors out there, to myself or to my warriors...if you feel connected with my writing I invite you to keep a copy of it (see mobile and photocopied sheets). You are invited to try on the robe, touch it, interact with it, enjoy it, strut, feel powerful, feel in control, you got this and... "you are bold and brave and strong"... Locking things away in a tiny box 'these are boxes I made and used during my therapy sessions. Being able to open up a box and tackle the issues one at a time helped me to manage when I felt overwhelmed. Tin can telephone and sticky thoughts After my first workshop I really wanted to be able to speak my thoughts into the minds of police officers, ISVAs, the CPS. I also wanted other professionals to hear those sticky thoughts. I felt if people knew what I was thinking and feeling maybe they would be able to understand? These items are my way of giving voice to that place I had been in. The power those emotions and thoughts had, and a recognition that at times, still, I think and feel these things, such is the power of abuse, shame and grooming. I invite you to read my words and should you wish, to whisper them into the tin can telephone Do better These are real sentences and real words and the real impact these abhorrent actions and crime have. I want you to remember the origin of 'survivors' - for some the pain is too great to go on. I am your sister, your child, your neice, your aunt, your partner. I need you to do better for me and for them. |
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See Me by Victoria May Whilst I may cast my eyes down Down to avoid your judgemental gaze I still feel your indifference and my own My own sting as I recount this dark phase This dark phase in my dark life I am but one, one of many souls with downcast eyes ... |
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Learning to fly again By Han Park Wounded Bird- mending the broken wings so to take flight again into the horizon, into the sunset where the journey continues. This piece of artwork is a representation of my journey through grief. The overwhelming challenge of finding purpose again and to carry on with life was very difficult. However, My art was my strength , and gave me so much help in those dark times. My message is that there is hope even when it seems impossible. I found my wings and flew again. |
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Zines Collection by Various Artists Zines are hand-made, informal publications that have historically been part of an alternative counter-culture, often presenting information and art that contain a message about marginalised people’s experiences. Our collection of zines are made by Tam Martin Fowles, and other members of the Hope in the Heart community. Tam is working closely with Hel Spandler and Jill Anderson of the Madzines research project at the University of Central Lancashire, whose aim is to highlight zines that “craft contention” about mental health Behind the Labels by Many Whether a diagnosis, insult, stereotype, characteristic or perceived identity, we are all continually labelled – and continually label others – throughout our lives. On multicoloured, oversized luggage-style labels, participants were invited to write a label that has been applied to them on one side and their truth about that label on the other. There are blank labels on the Making Table. Please make your own to add to the collection if you would like. |