• Watch: Fears – two_

    May 19, 2020 - By 

    Content note: self-harm Fears, AKA Constance Keane, has consistently used her voice to further the conversation on the importance of the arts in mental health, so we could think of no more apt artist to open up the Northern Ireland Mental Health Arts Festival. Taking place remotely for the first time, running through until May 24th, the festival could hardly happen at a more pertinent time, with online-only commissioned music, art, film premieres, talks & workshops from esteemed doctors and comedians, with many innovative ways to navigate ‘the great unprecedented’. Commissioned by the festival, the self-produced single and its visual companion depict the non-linear recovery from trauma, using repurposed footage shot by Constance and her family during the last…

  • Box Office Blues: Cinema as a Kind of Therapy

    May 17, 2017 - By 

    When I got depressed I would go to the movies. No doubt for many people the idea of sitting in the dark, on their own, in the middle of day, is itself depressing. ‘All by himself — how sad’. I’m also sure, though, that fellow pilgrims can relate to its pleasures, a solitary indulgence that is utterly pleasant at the best of times, and potentially restorative at the worst. There are, first, a bunch of very basic, practical mental health benefits to going to the movies, not all of them replicable with a Netflix subscription. You have to put on jeans and…