We had an overwhelming amount of applications for our workshops with the Royal College of Psychiatrists Arts Special Interest Group (ArtSIG). We were only able to pick three artists for these commissions and the successful artists are listed below. We’re looking forward to kicking off these workshops in November and continuing for the next three months.
Kayla McClellan
Kayla McClellan will be running a workshop in November focusing on sound walking. “This practice essentially aims to ‘rediscover and reactivate our sense of hearing’ (Westerkamp, 1974). I fuse Soundwalking with bodily/spatial awareness and memory: reinforced by creating a memory map after completing my walk.
Kayla is an international multidisciplinary artist and dance scientist from Florida. She received her BFA Dance Degree in 2017 from Florida State University and her MFA Dance Science Degree from London’s Trinity Laban Conservatoire of Music and Dance in 2019. McClellan has also been granted a UK Global Talent visa, endorsed by Arts Council, due to her arts and research work created around the world. Among McClellan’s artistic and scientific endeavors in the UK/US, she has created relationships in the Netherlands while working with organizations and dance companies like Fiber and ICK Amsterdam. McClellan ultimately desires to serve whatever community she resides in by connecting with individuals through her artistic practice and research.
Anne Taylor
Anne Taylor’s workshop in December will “introduce participants to writing for therapeutic and reflective purposes through a series of playful prompts, encouraging an exploration of the body and memories and stories held within. We will combine free-writing, an expressive writing technique, with the epistolatory form. Psychiatrist participants will be encouraged to move out of their mind and into their physical self and to converse with a part of their body in new and exciting ways through mapping, free-writing and letter writing.“
Anne is a professional writer and group facilitator specialising in running creative writing groups for personal and professional development. Her work includes the development and running of workshops for the mental health charity MIND, medical students and trainee GPs, and other educational and community projects. She is the co-director of an online course in therapeutic and reflective writing which has an international audience, and has presented and written widely on the power and value of creative writing for wellbeing.
Anna-Maria Amato
Anna-Maria’s January workshop will be bringing in the crafts and reflection. “Taking inspiration from my previous projects, I will explore inspiration and story telling and how they can develop our empathy and communication skills. Under the concept of bringing ideas and potential into fruition, participants will create a paper bird sculpture. They will build up the feathers with ideas, encouragement and plans on how their bird will take flight.“
About Anna’s practice: “I am a fine artist and curate a gallery founded in a social inclusion project in South London. My work at the gallery follows the ethos: art as focus, a safe space, breaking the mould, being brave, enabling, connecting and bringing people together. I have worked on my art since I was a young child. My lived experience of schizophrenia has been central for me to find the potential of art as a way to wellbeing.“
