To provide our arts and mental health project access to essential art materials, enabling vital creative expression as a therapeutic outlet
by Katie in Reading, England, United Kingdom
Reaching our target would enable access to vital art materials for our community group members, but reaching the stretch target would provide access to a wider variety of art materials and opportunities, with a view towards assisting members with recovery creatively and offering opportunities to gain skills, confidence and intergration within the local community.
The Engine Room is an arts and mental health project built by a collective, a united strength, with a crystal clear vision and unwavering passion.
We want to mould our arts and mental health project into something new, unique, and beautiful that challenges the very core of what it is to be human. Day by day we are becoming a more mentally fragile world, and we need to problem solve in a very different way... And we are ready to start the revolution.
"The Engine Room is an accessible, safe and friendly space in which I can not only creatively express myself... it's about social interaction and being part of something. Creative expression is an essential outlet for my mental wellbeing and recovery... And being part of a project, with a view to changing perceptions around mental health gives me passion and purpose."- service user of The Engine Room.
Our Mission: -
We create space for individuals across our local community to access independant free thinking and creative experiences, promoting empowerment, recovery and healthy human development within a nurturing space, through a programme of weekly sessions.
Our wish is to enable individuals and groups with mental health issues to connect with the community in looking at creative ways in which we can nurture and help build mentally healthy communities, and society as a whole; through peer supported arts programmes.
The programme is initiated by individuals who live with enduring mental health issues, for people with mental health issues living in Reading and the surrounding areas.
The Engine Room's emphasis has always been about giving people with enduring mental health issues the power, skills and encouragement to take lead in their own community.
The unwavering passion is creating a project that challenges the very core of how mental health issues are viewed, and how collectively we develop our vision to create a mentally more healthy place to live.
Our project is run by the community, for the community.
Welcome to our Studio...
Past Exhibitions...
The Engine Room Project Launch. July 2016, Broad Street Mall, Reading (above).
In Collaboration with Jelly at Windsor Contemporary Art Fair 2016 (above).
The Engine Room Collective. Unfinished conversations, The Conversation Space, Reading 2016
Open Call...
Calling all artist to submit creative responses to our blog on the theme of 'In every human heart, there's a revelation of the mind'.
Thank you for taking the time to read about The Engine Room <3
Photography credit to Katie Maria Francis and Lisa Marie Gibbs.
This project offers rewards in return for your donation. Please select a reward below.