We came across this a few days ago. It is an amazing piece of poetry by Dorothy Duffy that responds to the realities of the current situation and directly speaks about the death of her sister. Coronavirus: ‘My sister is not a statistic’.
‘But‘ was Artlink’s first foray into fiction. With the support of the Scottish Book Trust, Anne Donovan paved the way. At the time we were working with a number of parents, who were beginning to reach the end of their tether, caring for their son or daughter within a care system which did not necessarily offer them the support they required. All she had to do was meet them and come up with a story…What patience! What skill!
‘Scott vs Demons’ re-imagines a young man’s experience of his Personal Independence Payments assessment and the unfolding consequences. The comic is written by well-known writer Alan Grant, drawn by the renowned artist Robin Smith and informed by the brilliant Scott Davidson. Together they have arrived at an alternative reality, one in which the victim begins to fight back……. Read the comic here.
‘Something in the Pause’ by Nicola White was informed by an arts project that involved an artist, an informatics specialist and a man with a liking for music. The man in question had a learning disability, a sight impairment and physical disability, which meant he was reliant on others choosing what he listened to. He listened to Radio Forth a lot. So artist Steve Hollingsworth began creating a sound system which could operate with one simple hand movement, enabling the man to select, for the first time, what he felt like listening to from an extensive library of sounds.
‘Angel Wings’ is work of fiction based on the experiences of a selected group of people with experience of mental ill health. After discussion we commissioned Anne Donovan to write imaginatively about a child’s experience of having a mother or father who experiences mental ill health. Anne was asked to write it in a way that would speak to children and young adults assuring them that they were not alone and that the experience is relatively common.