A creative project for women who have or have had a history of mental health issues (including anxiety and depression).
Led by artist Sharon Marsden and writer Ann Sansom the aim was to create a space where women would feel comfortable in expressing their thoughts and feelings: by talking, making art, writing prose or poetry.
The Who Cares? project had a number of different strands that included:
- creating a series participatory workshops / artist led sessions
- commissioning new artwork (publication / booklet)
- dissemination of findings to the mental health community
In creating the project verd de gris were interested in finding ways of involving local people at every stage of the process: in the setting up of localised open meetings for recruitment; in the creation of an artistic group to create words and images; in letting the group dynamic determine the end product to guarantee relevance and useability.
Ultimately we wanted to get local people and local service users to feed back ideas and to share their experiences with the wider community in as stimulating and productive a manner as possible.