The award-winning Synergi photovoice project has produced a digital gallery featuring photographs and the narratives of ethnic minority people with lived experience of severe mental illness based in London and Manchester.
Their work was publicly exhibited in London on 26 September at Bush Theatre and in Manchester on 8 October at Z-Arts in 2018, featuring the images and narratives of ethnic minority people with lived experience of severe mental illness.
Funded by Queen Mary’s Centre for Public Engagement and the Synergi Collaborative Centre, the free exhibitions provided a creative space for guests to view the photographs developed through the Synergi photovoice project, reflecting the often unheard stories of service users, lived experience activists and carers.
Entitled Visual Reflections of Mental Health: Realities of Severe Mental Illness for Ethnic Minority People, the public engagement project collaborated with 21 service users and carers in seven introductory and photo reflection
workshops and three exhibitions at local mental health charities in London and Manchester.
Participating organisations were LMCP, African and Caribbean Mental Health Services, the Psychosis Therapy Project at Islington Mind and Mind in Haringey.
Find out more about the participants and their work by clicking on each image.
“With my pictures I would like to communicate to mental health authorities the importance of giving all people some sort of hope when they are facing problems, to offer them opportunities to express themselves in order to overcome obstacles and give some structure to their everyday lives.”
Synergi photovoice participant
