Are you interested in arts and would you like to find out more about CoolTan Arts?

Are you a Community mental health worker/Psychiatrist/Social Worker/Support Planner/Member of the Community Mental Health Team/Nurse/CPN/Outreach Worker/Key Worker? Someone experiencing mental distress/Disabled/Someone with complex needs/Dual Diagnosis? Do you have a personal budget? Are you looking for things to do to help with your recovery? Are you looking to find opportunities that will help increase your skills, break isolation, enable you to volunteer, get out of the house, make friends, go out on trips, enjoy what London has to offer, and develop your interests?

CoolTan Arts offers a range of opportunities, including workshops: Visual Arts, Textiles, IT, Video, Podcasting, Radio, Volunteering, Local History, Women Only Poetry, IT and Visual Arts; as well as: mixed Poetry, Knitting, Trips and Exhibitions.

Come along to our new referrals information session to find out more. Please contact Clara for more info: clara@cooltanarts.org.uk

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Private View: Tue 16 August 2011, 6pm-8pm

An exciting exhibition with fashion show at CoolTan Arts celebrating the achievements of the Batik and Textiles class since it started in 2006 with their first major ‘RetroSpective, coinciding with the 60^th Anniversary of the Festival of Britain’.

Come along to our private view, meet the artists and get inspired.

Please RSVP to kathrin@cooltanarts.org.uk or call 020 7701 2696.

As the Southbank Centre celebrates the 60th Anniversary of the Festival of Britain, CoolTan Arts look back over the last 6 years of their Batik and Textiles class with our first major ‘RetroSpective’. As we look back at the Festival that attempted to give Britons a feeling of recovery and progress post-war, CoolTan Arts celebrate the recovery of the mind through the arts.

The Festival of Britain was described as “a tonic for the nation” and in a time when Britain is once again embarking on a journey to financial recovery we look at the importance of adopting the ‘make do and mend’ attitude of the past. Applying these ethics to contemporary design and master craftsmanship, we will be displaying the bespoke hand dyed and crafted garments by CoolTan Arts participants.

Over the modest 6 years CoolTan Arts Batik and Textiles class has helped over 40 participants back into the community through our batik workshop. Our collections have show three-years-running on the Alternative Fashion Week’s catwalk and been on display at exhibitions from Elephant and Castle to Bethnal Green.

We invite you to view the positive effects textiles arts can have on the modern Britons of Southwark and how we ‘make do and mend’ the stigma of mental distress in our community.

Additional Information

The exhibition will be on display until mid-September, feel free to pop in CoolTan Arts’ Independent Gallery Monday-Friday 10.30am-5pm.

CoolTan Arts believes that mental well being is enhanced by the power of creativity. It is a charity run by and for people with mental distress and exists to inspire the well-being and creative participation of a diverse range of people through the production of quality art based on social enterprise principles,.

Further information is available from: Kathrin Kirrmann, Communications Officer, CoolTan Arts, 020 7183 0350 kathrin@cooltanarts.org.uk www.cooltanarts.org.uk

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The women of Cooltan Arts, a mental health arts project based in Southwark South London, unveiled their collection of batik kimono designs on the catwalk during Alternative Arts Fashion Week.

“Fantastic!’ is how Lesley Dewhurst reports feeling after her modelling debut, wearing her own design: “I was doing a twirl at the end of the platform and I thought ‘How high is this? What if I fall off?’ I taught art for 20 years, but then life pressures meant I was full of anxiety, trapped at home.” Now, says Lesley, involvement with Cooltan means getting out and getting creative and being stimulated.

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