Mersey Wylie: Articipation

Another long but successful day at Liverpool Mental Health Festival!

I spent the day at Constellations, where we hosted a day of two halves, on the theme of ‘Articipation’.

The first half of the event was a forum on wellbeing in the arts and creative industries and was attended by a range of musicians, writers, performers, artists, arts administrators, promoters, record label owners and more.

We had a great keynote speech from poet and mental health activist, Clare Shaw, followed by a panel discussion chaired by arts practioner and mental health support worker Nikki Grieg and featuring Clare; singer/songwriter/vocal coach Mersey Wylie; Fran Codman, guitarist with space rockers Pale Rider; Peter Harrison, guitarist and songwriter with art rockers SPQR; Ruth Gould, artistic director of DaDaFest (Disability and Deaf Arts Festival); and musician, performer and musical entrepreneur Henry Pulp.

There was also a presentation about coping with anxiety, stage fright, imposter syndrome and negative audience feedback featuring ‘magic, mentalism and psychological artistry’ from Mindsways. I even got to be the magician’s assistant!

Forum attendees also got to participate in discussion workshops about the issues raised on the day, and the whole thing was captured in visual form by More than Minutes.

The feedback was very positive!

Later in the evening we were treated to a phenomenal line-up of live music from SPQR https://flickr.com/photos/129535142@N04/sets/72157696541832000, Mersey Wylie https://flickr.com/photos/129535142@N04/sets/72157700847055891 and Stealing Sheep https://flickr.com/photos/129535142@N04/sets/72157696543684710 - all of whom brought the house down!

Again, it’s been hard to choose one photograph for the day, so I’ve put links to a selection, above.

But I particularly like this one of the very lovely Mersey Wylie https://youtube.com/watch?v=dMwt_yFa4Uo She’s been a great supporter of what we do at work, and of the festival in particular, and she’s an absolute sweetheart! Big thanks to her and to everyone who made today so special!