Friday, 8 November 2019 at 2:00 pm – Friday, 8 November 2019 at 4:00 pm

Reimagining LGBTQI+ Wellbeing and Mental Health

Date: Friday 8th November 2019

Time: 1.30pm - 5pm

Location: No 70 Oxford St

Tickets: Free - Available on Eventbrite

"Reimagining LGBTQ+ Mental Health and Wellbeing" is an afternoon of films and workshop on LGBT+ journeys of recovery and HIV sense-making open to the public. The event will contribute to conversations about LGBT+ mental health and wellbeing, and promote dialogue between local communities, social scientists and artists who have worked in that specific field. This event is part of the ESRC Festival of Social Sciences.

The programme comprises the screening of two films made by researchers exploring intersections between Arts and Anthropology: "My Recoverist Family" co-directed by Amanda Ravetz (2017), and "This is My Face" by Angélica Cabezas Pino (2019). The films will be accompanied by PhotoLoo, a hands-on experience led by recovery activist, artist and curator Mark Prest, founding Director of Portraits of Recovery (PORe). My Recoverist Family was commissioned by Mark Prest for the Portraits of Recovery project UNSEEN: Simultaneous Realities.

The event will open up reflections about personal experiences from the public, showing that the social sciences can offer something different to the medicalised/ clinical language associated with health issues currently affecting LGBT+ communities and their wellbeing.

The event is aimed at general members of the public, professionals working in the field of mental health and members of the LGBT+ community in Greater Manchester.

Programme:

1.30 First instalment of PhotoLoo, by Mark Prest

2.00pm Screening of "My Recoverist Family", introduction by director, Amanda Ravetz.

2.50pm Second instalment of PhotoLoo, by Mark Prest.

3.20pm Screening of "This is My Face" with brief introduction by director, Angélica Cabezas Pino.

4.30pm PhotoLoo final instalment.

5.00pm End of event.
More info:

- My Recoverist Family (Documentary, 2017) Directed, filmed and edited by AMANDA RAVETZ & HUW WAHL, My Recoverist Family is a film exploring the non-linearity of recovery from substance use within the LGBT+ community and beyond. Featuring David Hoyle, Jackie Haynes, Another Adele, Greg Thorpe, Justin Freeman and Mark Prest, with a performance directed by Nick Blackburn. My Recoverist Family was commissioned by Mark Prest for the Portraits of Recovery project UNSEEN: Simultaneous Realities.

- This is My Face (Documentary, 2019): In Chile, people living with HIV fear stigma, and often conceal their condition and remain silent about what they are going through. "This is My Face" explores what happens when a range of men living with the virus open up about the illness that changed their life trajectories. It follows a creative process whereby they produce photographic portraits that represent their (often painful) memories and feelings, a process which helps them challenge years of silence, shame, and misrepresentation. A lesson in the power of collaborative storytelling.

- PhotoLoo experience: Framed by a revealing text about power and powerlessness on what Mark Prest is recovering from. PhotoLoo asks how art might be useful to explore our feelings and our conflicted selves. It opens up a temporal, experiential space for Mark (as artist?) and ourselves to trustfully connect and creatively re-imagine who we really are and our place in the world. Mark will guide people in making a self-portrait using a set of instructions which ask people to consider and then visually express their feelings and internal conflicts. These portraits act as a form of dialogue and art making for sharing and talking about our ‘shit’ towards a more authentic presentation of self. The resulting polaroids will form an accumulative online presence that visually articulates a better collective identity fit.

A half-day event to reflect with LGBT+ local communities about Wellbeing and Mental Health from the perspective of Social Sciences and Arts.

The event includes the screening of two films made by Manchester-based social scientists/visual anthropologists working collaboratively with LGBTQ+ participants: ‘My Recoverist Family’ by Prof. Amanda Ravetz (MMU), and ‘This is My Face: What Lies inside a Journey with HIV’ by Dr. Angélica Cabezas (UoM). The documentary films, which explore intimate journeys of recovery and sense making in relation to illness, will stimulate a dialogue about wellbeing with LGBT+ communities, facilitated by the researchers themselves.

The event will include a workshop run by artist and founding Director of Portraits of Recovery, (PORe) Mark
Prest, himself a man in recovery, who will lead a hands-on workshop session with participants at the event. In this workshop, participants will explore their emotional and social landscape using insitu aspects of arts methods (in particular photography) of the same kind used by the researchers during the making of
their visual research outputs. Prest was both participant and commissioner of the film ‘My Recoverist Family’.

Part of the ESRC Festival of Social Science. See the full events schedule here: https://esrc.ukri.org/public-engagement/festival-of-social-science/ 

RAH! - Research in Arts and Humanities