Arts & Ourselves is a series of creative sessions led by and for people with experience of self-harm. It is run by Make Space in collaboration with excellent creatives and facilitators. The programme offers room for our experiences in their multiple forms; a space for us to be together and to make some things. At no point will you be asked or encouraged to discuss or creatively represent your experience of self-harm, however you will be welcome to.
All sessions are held online, in the evenings and will be free to attend.
Our aim is to give room for self-harm all of its different meanings; you might want to explore shame, feel into joy, forget about self-harm entirely, or hear from others. Whatever you need, we hope you feel welcome. Each session will focus on a particular creative medium - the extent to which you make this about your experiences of self-harm is up to you.
Note: This programme is aimed at those 18+.
Please read the following before signing up to a session:
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These sessions are for people with experience of self-harm. This could be historical or ongoing. You get to decide whether or not you feel you have experience of self-harm; it is not our place to decide.
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Each session is free to attend and will be held online on Zoom. Our programme is supported by a therapist who will be available to anyone who needs space to debrief after the sessions. The debrief space is a one off session, to give you room to process what might have come up for you in the workshop(s)- it is not intended to offer ongoing or immediate support.
We also have a small budget to send you appropriate materials for each session; this will depend on sign ups and the content of each session.
Each session will be automatically captioned as default. There is space on the sign up form to let us know about any other access needs you have such as live closed captioning, BSL, or an intro to the team before the session. We will do our best to meet these needs.
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Make Space rejects cessation based responses to self-harm. We will never ask or suggest that you stop self-harming. We recognise that self-harm can take many forms and play many different roles in people's lives. We do not require you to disclose anything about your self-harm.
We are an organisation led by people with experience of self-harm. We are not trained medical professionals and cannot offer medical advice or assistance.
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At the end of the programme we’d like to make a Zine (similar to one we made before; A Space for Self-Harm). The zine will work as an exhibition of the work we made together. Details of how to submit your makings will be sent after each workshop.
Collaging a New World
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+.
The joy of sticks: character creation for bad artists
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+.
Mad Memes!
This event will take place online. Click here to sign up.
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 18+.
Making waves
This event will take place online. Click here to sign up.
In this workshop we’ll be listening to music and creatively responding to it together, exploring how music can affect us - how can it shift our flow of energy? We’ll be riding the sound waves, listening to a variety of music and being curious as to what that evokes in us, tuning in to our own relationship with music in a relaxed environment, making visual art along the way in a peer group.
There will be time to chat together, the opportunity to share music we enjoy with others, and plenty of time to play and explore with art materials with no pressure of a rigid outcome.
This workshop will be facilitated by Layla Taylor (they/them). Layla is is an artist, activist and creative facilitator (FdA Creative Therapeutic Practice) freelance trainer, and community researcher. Their work focuses mainly on lived experience and community care in Disability and LGBTQIA+ fields.
You will need:**
Headphones
A4 paper
Fluid drawing materials (e.g. oil pastels, soft pastels, or coloured chalk).
**We have a small budget to send participants materials in the post. Details of how to request materials will be in the sign up email.
Note: This session is aimed at those 18+.
Creating responses to self-harm
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? In this workshop the Make Space team reflects on the role of creativity in building user-led and survivor-rooted responses to self-harm. We reflect both on the use and abuse of the arts in mental health care, as well as how a more expansive view of “creativity” might help us to be open and nuanced in our responses to our own experiences.
We will also share our reflections on the Arts & Ourselves programme.
You will need:
No materials required!
Note: This session is aimed at those 18+.
Drifting space: a poetry workshop
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+.
Love Letters from No-Go Zones: a writing workshop for you.
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.
Get in touch
If you have any questions about the programme or would like to speak to the team before attending, please feel free to get in touch at info@makespaceco.org
Funding
This project is funded by The National Lottery Community Fund.