We have two new weekly workshops starting in February:

Women’s Poetry
Thursdays 11am – 1pm
Starting February 2nd
An informal experimental workshop to get you going with that spark you always knew you had. The group will be working towards a publication in 2012. Beginners and published poets welcome.

Women’s IT
Wednesdays 11am – 1pm
Starting February 1st
Learn new computer skills or brush up on old ones. The group will be working on producing an illustrated book. Learn Photoshop, Office Word and Internet skills. Learn at your own pace, learn what you feel comfortable with.

Sign up now! Contact Suzie on 0207 701 2696 or email suzie@cooltanarts.org.uk

Please note: These workshops are open to women from across London who cannot access a Personal Budget.

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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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Learn Computer skills or brush up on old ones. The group will be working on creating a book with illustrations. You can learn Photoshop, Office word, and internet skills. Learn at your own pace, learn what you feel comfortable with.

WOMEN’S POETRY Thursdays 2.25 – 4.25pm

Come and join this new, fun and friendly class, whether you are a published poet or never scribbled a line, learn to appreciate poetry, and produce your own creative writing in a safe and supportive environment.

Workshops start 3rd Week of October 2011, but you can join after this date. You are guaranteed 10 weeks of workshops with a chance to stay on for longer if we have spaces.

Please ring Clara at CoolTan on 0207 701 2696 or email clara@cooltanarts.org.uk
To sign up for workshops. You must sign up before you can join.

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The sound scape presented consisted of sounds recorded at July’s Largactyl Shuffle Literary Walk created in collaboration with sound artist Isa Suarez.

Read and download the full review here. Kaya, a participant in the Largactyl Group said: “The film Innovation in Mad Culture was a wonderful introduction to CoolTan’s work and especially the Largactyl Shuffle Walk. As I have recently joined the group -the Literary Walk was my first walk- the movie was especially informative. Amongst others, it showed what CoolTan means for so many people.[...] The movie showed the diversity of the walks and the enthusiasm, collaboration and creativity of all the volunteers.”

This film is based on the Largactyl Shuffle Walk in October 2010, which celebrated World Mental Health Day and ‘mad’ culture, explored the past, present and future of Madness and Contemporary Psychiatric Innovation. CoolTan participants designed 5 bio-degradable sculptures that were placed along the route of the walk and highlighted the work of innovators such as Michael Faraday, Charles Babbage, Sir Peter Mansfield, Octavia Hill, David Morris

The film will be available for hire and we are also looking for more venues to screen the film. If you’d like to host a film screening, please email us on info@cooltanarts.org.uk or call us on 020 77012696.

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It’s now available on Amazon, make sure you get one for yourself and for friends. It’s a lovely Christmas present, at the bargain price of £5.99

CoolTan Arts had a public launch of the Anthropology at the Liberty festival at The Trafalgar Square on 4^th of September.

Between the front and back cover of this book, 24 genius poets of our time catwalk their poetry.

This is one of the most important poetry books of the first ten years of the 21^st century. Every poem in it is packed with art, meaning and social comment that would be landmark in literature.

This is *not* a book about mental illness, but rather one that reflects a full range of experience and of poetic styles: there’s really something for everyone in it.

At the same time, it does not shy away from any subject matter, and while one of our poets has been censored to read one of their poems, we believe strongly that everything, no matter how raw, is valid material for poetry, and can be shared and related to by others.

The books are available on sale for a price of £5.99 plus post and packaging from the office of CoolTan Arts

Now available online on Amazon!

convert this post to pdf.]]> http://www.cooltanarts.org.uk/2010/11/cooltan-books-launches-%e2%80%98anthropology%e2%80%99-cooltan-arts%e2%80%99-poetry-book-is-born/feed/ 0 http://www.cooltanarts.org.uk/2010/06/old-devil-moon-by-martin-walsh-%e2%80%93-response-to-high-risk-psychiatric-patients-to-be-tagged-south-london-press-8th-june-2010-p-4/ http://www.cooltanarts.org.uk/2010/06/old-devil-moon-by-martin-walsh-%e2%80%93-response-to-high-risk-psychiatric-patients-to-be-tagged-south-london-press-8th-june-2010-p-4/#comments Fri, 25 Jun 2010 11:33:40 +0000 admin http://www.cooltanarts.org.uk/?p=4079 jkjk
Click here to read the Original article (pg 4) on South London Press

If Philip K Dick, Isaac Asimov, or George Orwell saw the world now, a world born from the pages of their electric futures that they so vividly predicted, they might feel slightly nauseous. Great Briton has become an island of dystopian distrust and double edged support networks, one hand feeding whilst the other takes away. Science fiction doesn’t get much richer than this and our country has been crafted into the perfect backdrop for the oncoming enactment of Orwell’s 1984. We’ve been watching it coming for quite some time now, and much like the novels prole’s we have done little to change the course of the action.

Patients seeking support with metal distress at South London and Mausley NHS trust are being shackled with a tracking devise to ease the minds of the outside world who feel threatened by the patient’s emersion back into society. This is the same treatment given to criminals.

The devices are patronizingly called Buddi and cost quite a considerable £299 per tag. The tracking device Buddi won the technology & Innovation CBI / Real Business Growing Business Awards. They claim on their website to adhere to equal opportunities and fair dealing policies. It’s just a shame that this policy doesn’t extend to the application of their business practices. The tracker, noted for it‘s ability to pinpoint the location your lost dog, is now used to distract and cover up ineffective methods of treatment and care.

Added to the initial expense of an individual Buddi there will be the added cost of maintenance and repair, followed by the supervision and running of the technology to monitor these “patients with severe mental health problems”. I’m no mathematician but any one can deduce that this adds up to a huge cost spent per person on the British obsession of surveillance. The one stop cure-all. This money could easily be put to far better use. As it stands this money does nothing to support the person, the equal citizen, experiencing mental distress. Far worse, it actually achieves the exact opposite, it manages to condemn and stigmatize people, it increases irrational fear and paranoia within communities and it extinguishes any hope that the branded citizen has of maintaining and achieving a stronger sense of well-being and self-confidence. This demoralization and enforced declassification does not fulfill the positive treatment and support needed by the individual.

The Buddi tags are fitted to the patient towards the end of rehabilitation. Surely this is a classic example of backwards logic, destroying any benefits of positive treatment the patient may have received. These expensive devises bring fear into our communities and highlight the blatant fact that the national health service are poorly equipped to provide the care and support needed by those experiencing mental distress. The services provided and financed via the NHS trust are generally insufficient and malnourished.

There are other ways to bring around mental wellbeing. Focusing and developing a person’s creativity is a fail-safe. I volunteer for CoolTan Arts, a charity based in Southwark, London. The team at CoolTan recognises the positive influence art has upon our mental well-being, they use this knowledge to deliver successful programmes which offer support and outreach within a trusting, friendly and creative environment.

Ankle bracelets, trackers, are a short term crowd pleaser. They succeed only in showing us that while Big Brother is watching; he is doing very little, however benevolently, with its usual dab handed and lazy approach. Yet again the damage caused by such flippancy and lack of genuine care will most likely be overlooked as our government will have appealed to the security and safety nebula of our nation.

Professor Tom Fahy says, “it should reassure residents that our services place an equal emphasis on safety as well as getting our patients better”. I fail to understand how increasing negative stigma helps any form of personal recovery.

This awful scenario is being trailed at Maudsley NHS Trust in Denmark Hill, South London. We can stop this from going any further by making our voices heard and by promoting an alternative. Get in touch with your local MP and express your concern.

The views expressed in this article do not necessarily represent the views of CoolTan Arts but are the personal views of the author Martin Walsh (volunteer at CoolTan Arts).

More information about CoolTan Arts is available on W: http://www.cooltanarts.org.uk,

E: info@cooltanarts.org.uk , T: 020 77012696.

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CoolTan Arts’ response to ‘Depression? It’s just the new trendy illness!’ by Janet Street Porter, Daily Mail 19^th May 2010.

If you have a problem, talking – or writing – helps. Bottling up concerns and anxieties is damaging. Having a better grasp on the facts and a heightened social awareness of mental distress is a key step in moving forward and finding positive ways to ease the suffering experienced by a growing amount of people.

Janet Street Porter recently branded a number of middle class women of exploiting experiences of depression, when arguably they should be understood. Who are we to judge what another person’s depression might be like? Her article raises a distinct social and financial ‘class’ question. And supposedly enough wealth can buy proper treatment, yet why is mental distress still on the rise across all communities?

We are given no facts to support any of Janet Street Porter’s article. Is telling the women cited to, in effect, simply ‘pull their socks up and get over it’ a proviso for a positive resolution? Articles such as this carelessly promote unnecessary and negative stigma.

Our western lifestyle is manic. It’s terrifically fast and ferocious and changes have happened quickly. Our working week is one of the longest in Europe and pressure is greater than it has been.

As the medical world has improved it’s methods of diagnosing and treating clinical depression, bi-polar, and other forms of mental distress, the word ‘depression’ has become a word that’s being casually thrown about in everyday life. Serious conditions can be belittled and undermined through misunderstanding. Or I misunderstood Ms Street-Porter’s point that melancholy is increasingly used to boost popularity, to gain attention and of course, sell celebrity-endorsed books?

Whatever, there is something seriously off kilter when people who voice concerns about their own well being, are ignored, mistreated, or not taken seriously. This is a tragedy. It’s common to hear of people misinformed and encouraged into prescribed drug dependency when other courses of action could be much more effective.  Alternate solutions should be offered and sought, and social therapy could be encouraged; often the charities and organisations who offer these avenues are not adequately recognised, supported or promoted.

Some forms of mental distress are increasing rapidly and we need a better plan of action to combat destructive attitudes and find ways to bring stability and equal care into our communities. Is there a lack of creativity in the ‘system’ that reinforces isolation and pressure?

One example is CoolTan Arts, a charity challenging stigma and campaigning for the rights of people experiencing mental distress.

CoolTan Arts works from a vibrant arts centre near Elephant and Castle in South London. Run by and for people with mental distress, it believes mental well being is enhanced by the power of creativity.

We would very much welcome Janet Street Porter to come and visit us, at her convenience, and hopefully revise her opinions.

“Mixed anxiety and depression, according to the ONS 2000 survey, is experienced by 9.2 per cent of adults in Britain… the figures show an increase in the prevalence of mixed anxiety with depression compared with the 1993 survey by 1.4 per cent (from 7.8 per cent to 9.2 per cent).

Source: ONS, 2000, Psychiatric morbidity among adults living in private households in Great Britain.”

Source: http://www.counselling-directory.org.uk/commonstats.html

Written by Martin Walsh ©, volunteer at CoolTan Arts, with members of CoolTan Arts’ Self-Advocacy Training Course.

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Alternative adj. relating to activities that depart from or challenge traditional norms

By Martin Walsh

Photograph © See Li Click here for more images

“Scottish weave like we’ve never seen it before”

CoolTan Arts graced the catwalk at the Alternative Fashion Show in Old Spitalfields Market on a promising and sun kissed afternoon, celebrating the alternative and debuting their latest collection, Twisted Tartan.

The Alternative Fashion Show exists for individuals, groups and charities who might usually fall by the wayside in the cut throat and competitive world of fashion. The brain child of Maggie Pinhorn & Amy Dyke-Coomes the Alternative Fashion Show provides a viable and popular platform for individual artists, charities and creative groups to showcase their catalogues and imaginations.

CoolTan Arts are no stranger to the Spitalfields runway; this is the third consecutive year they’ve strutted their fashion alternatives and promoted a true understanding for the need of a healthy alternative. Their designs and ideas grew from a collective of Southwark residents who regularly attend the weekly CoolTan Arts Batik workshop, led by Lydia Honeybone. Their theme this year was tartan, and the theme was twisted with pure ingenuity and craftsmanship.

The presentation of their collection started confidently to a pace perfectly matched and complemented by the live jazz band. Shimmering silk sashes of greens, purples, creams and oranges adorned the austere models, who boasted a great confidence and self assured determination.

Several minutes and models into the Twisted Tartan collection I was cocksure that I’d clocked their angle, style and tempo, and then I was completely bowled over and struck down. Their minimalist and muted style was turned on its head and shaken from its ankles by the hi-octane and vibrant Chief Executive of CoolTan Arts, Michelle Baharier. Baharier exploded in full and fun colour onto the runway commanding an excited applause and a notable increase in flashing and clicking cameras. To close, Cool Tan left the catwalk dancing the Can-Can and laughing amongst themselves, proudly breaking the stiff and tired rules crooned by an old crow flying from an old school.

Twisted Tartan crafted a dynamic that captured the attention and hearts of its audience. Anyone lucky enough to bear witness to this year’s Alternative Fashion Show and its wealth of variety in textures, colours, and creativity will likely never forget it. Contemporary art was perfectly woven into blissfully alternative fashion.

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The Largactyl Shuffle, one of London’s Top Ten Walks as voted by Timeout magazine, took to the streets of Southwark on Saturday 21^st November with an All Saint’s Day theme. Run by CoolTan Arts, the walk is as much of a journey into Southwark’s past as a celebration of mental well-being and how this can be promoted through art, exercise and history.

The walk takes its name from the side effects caused by an anti-psychotic drug used to treat mental illness. Southwark has a legacy of mental health and the starting point for the walk was Maudsley Hospital in Denmark Hill, the first purpose-built psychiatric hospital for treatment and research. Walk leader Ari guided the way, pointing out places of interest such as Camberwell Green Magistrates’ Court, which used to have the power to section people.

Southwark takes pride in a rich cultural heritage, and this was also explored along the route. CoolTan Arts believes that ‘mental well-being is enhanced by the power of creativity’, and it was fascinating to see the links with the arts and theatre in the area. Michael Caine is one of Southwark’s more recent cultural icons, with Dickens and Shakespeare both associated with the area. Southwark also features in Chaucer’s The Canterbury Tales, with the Tabard Inn situated on Borough High Street.

Walkers took a break from their 5-mile journey at CoolTan Arts, for some well-earned refreshments and a chance to see participants’ artwork. As well as offering a variety of creative workshops, CoolTan Arts aims to create 10 public artworks along the Largactyl Shuffle and we had the opportunity to see the locations for some of these along the way.

The arrival of some light rain didn’t halt proceedings and the group continued on towards our destination, the Tate Modern. Particularly fascinating was seeing Guy’s Hospital where poet John Keats trained as a doctor, and the Cross Bones Graveyard with hundreds of ribbons paying tribute to the ‘Winchester Geese’, or prostitutes buried there. The Largactyl Shuffle was a great experience for learning about Southwark’s past, as well as CoolTan Art’s vision for its future.

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Last week’s episode of All in the Mind on Radio 4 explored some of the more surprising side effects of antipsychotics.  The programme featured a candid interview with Sabita, a 57 year old woman who’d been taking antipsychotics since the early 1980s.  She’d suffered worryingly irregular periods, loss of libido and had recently developed osteoporosis.  Sabita felt let down by doctors who hadn’t warned her of any side effects other than weight gain.

A consultant psychiatrist at the Institute of Psychiatry confirmed Sabita’s experience was typical and quoted research showing high levels of infertility amongst women taking antipsychotics. It turned out that doctors are often aware of these side effects but don’t realise how significant they are to patients.  The psychiatrist was keen to emphasise that people who are worried about the adverse effects of drugs shouldn’t stop taking them and that nowadays there’s the option of switching to more modern drugs which don’t cause hormonal problems.

The programme touched on a number of interesting issues. It highlighted a worrying assumption by professionals that infertility amongst people with schizophrenia may not be too much of a concern.  A sinister echo, perhaps, of the compulsory sterilisation programmes which once existed in many Western countries. Also, maybe understandably, psychiatrists seem to fear that if they reveal too much about the side effects of a drug the patient may stop taking it – with potentially tragic consequences.  For me it reinforced my belief that there’s still too much focus on finding the right drug when a holistic approach to treatment where drugs are only part of the picture can be more effective.

by Susan Todd

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