Piecing it Together

Devised and facilitated by Alexa Wright, Piecing it Together was a participatory art project based at two North London NHS Foundation Trust Acute Day Units for people who have experienced a recent deterioration in their mental health.

Over a period of 9 months from 2014-15 Alexa led weekly workshops for service users at the two day centres. These Art Project workshops offered an opportunity for participants to use collage as a direct, visual means to communicate what they had been through. Some people also continued to work with Alexa on a 1-1 basis to create small photo-text books about their experiences. As well as providing individuals recovering from acute mental difficulties with a means of coming to terms with what happened to them, the project aimed to challenge stigma around mental health more generally through exhibitions and a symposium where speakers featured participants and mental health workers equally. Interactions with the people Alexa met during the workshops informed a series of video and sound works, including There's So Much More I Want To Tell You and The Fragility of Everyday Life.

The project was funded by the Arts Council.

All the work shown here was created by project participants. A limited selection of their collages and books are documented below. For more examples and further details on the project please visit the Piecing It Together blog via the button below.