Threads of Being: Mental Health and Community Arts - A creative call to action for the future of mental health in Europe.

Arts and culture mediate the relationship between our inner and outer lives. They give us ways to express our inner thoughts and feelings, and to understand the world around us. Creative expression is one of the ways we can appreciate what connects us and what divides us, and provides a guide to the human experience.

The link between arts and mental health has been well documented. Mental health and well-being are strongly rooted in the world around us and our place in it, and creative expression is one of the ways we can communicate and express our complex and intangible experiences.

Young Europeans and artists are increasingly open about their experience of mental health and how it relates to their creative output. Yet talking about mental health is still stigmatised, and people who experience mental health issues are still discriminated against – this stigma and discrimination then adds to the burden of those already in distress.

Threads of Being will put community arts and mental health in the spotlight, celebrating the work being done across Europe in this field, examining its impact on individuals and societies, and asking what is the future for arts, culture, and mental health. By centring the work of people with lived experience of mental distress and their supporters, the festival and its visitors will take part in a conversation about art and mental health, and play a part in breaking the stigma which harms all of us