Here at LAH, we are always looking to promote the work that amazing organisations and practitioners are doing. We has the chance to interview the very wonderful Eve Loren about a new project that they have been working on with Bethlem Gallery.
meet me where I am is an audiobook of listening experiments co-created with Alex, Anon, Chloe Beale, Florence, Hattie, Helen, Ninette, Sam and Shan, and has been researched, developed and led by Eve. You can find out more about Eve and their practice, here.
Tell us about yourself, your artistic practice and connection to creative health?
I’m a multimedia artist, writer and cultural producer. For the past 12 years I’ve been working across TV, film and theatre, and making work for cultural institutions. I’ve also managed a slate of peer-led mental health services, and for 6 years led work in psychiatric hospitals, prisons, the community and online, creating spaces for the sharing of experiences that can be difficult to talk about, or listen to, like hearing voices, psychosis, self-harm and ongoing suicidality, as well as facilitating creative workshops.
I’ve been grappling with the problem of unspeakability, particularly with regards to institutional abuse and trauma, and how this manifests in our bodies and minds, for a long time now. Working in the mental health system I saw the destruction of safe spaces not only for us to speak about injustice, but for us to listen openheartedly to one another too, by Tory austerity policies.
Witnessing the impacts of institutional racism, misogyny and discrimination in mental healthcare, coupled with my own experiences of systemic harm, prompted me to turn my practice towards collective listening. I’m exploring listening as a means of examining power, privilege and injustice, both in the mental health system and beyond.
I’m currently researching the rise of fascism in Britain, the criminalisation of self-harm and suicide and the possibilities for revolt. I’m asking myself – if listening is a part of this process, where might our listening acts take us?
Can you tell us about how the idea for ‘meet me where I am’ came about?
I’d been researching the clinical construct of insight, its relationship with mental capacity law, and the ways the construct gets weaponised against people in distress – particularly racialised and minoritised people, including people who are LGBTQ+ and neurodivergent – for several years.
When the team at Bethlem Gallery saw a programme of work I was facilitating and curating for another arts and mental health organisation, they were interested in where my ideas might lead and invited me to submit a proposal for their Mental Health and Justice arts and research initiative in association with King’s College London. It was an incredible, and rare, opportunity to take an idea I’d been churning over in my mind for years and turn it into a residency which ended up lasting 3 yrs!
While this work is rooted in my own lived experiences, I wanted to ensure it didn’t centre my own story or voice. All of my previous work has been co-produced with fellow survivors, and I couldn’t imagine any other way to approach this piece of work. I’m hugely passionate about moving away from participation and towards creating real opportunities for collaborators to be valued as knowledge producers and leaders in their own right. It’s one of the reasons why I credit everyone involved in my projects as co-creators – to honour their hard-won knowledge and to trouble the power imbalance between us.
How did you decide who to collaborate with on the project?
Deciding who to recruit onto the project was one of my biggest challenges. I scripted and produced a video call out for social media, and was overwhelmed with support. I’d costed up a budget for 9 collaborators – as I wanted to ensure everyone involved received proper payment for their work, which meant costing them at a higher hourly rate than I’d budgeted for myself – and I received an incredible 60+ requests to take part in less than two weeks!
I carried out mini interviews to find out more about people’s experiences, listening to how they spoke about their reflections on the construct of insight and how clinical decision-making about insight and mental capacity had impacted their care, and I also had to zoom out and think carefully and critically about how these stories spoke to one another and examine the overall picture they painted of the current state of the system.
In addition to receiving requests via social media, I also did a lot of outreach work to find people who wouldn’t have put themselves up for something like this, and I approached all of the clinicians directly to be involved as I’d been following their work both online and offline and valued their openness and criticality.
I had to confront difficult feelings about turning down more than 50 people who wanted to be a part of this work, and to be heard, and I needed to stay alive to the power and the privilege afforded not only by my whiteness but by my position as the artist. To say the project was an ethical (and often legal) minefield is an understatement!
The use of the audio and the imagery is extremely powerful and impactful: what led you to choose these mediums to work with?
Thank you! I usually work in film but I chose audio for this project to centre the listening process and to support the safety of everyone involved. I know of survivors who have been penalised by their mental health team for speaking publicly about failings in their care, so anonymity was an essential form of protection. It also gives people the chance to let go of their stories, or to no longer identify with them in the future. We’re writing and rewriting our stories together, in the context of our relationships, and I’m excited that our stories can and will change.
From the very beginning I felt strongly that each person or pair’s contribution required a sister image to sit beside it on the website, and I imagined the image having its own conversation with the audio. I’m madly in love with Merlin Evan’s illustration work, and I knew she’d be a brilliant collaborator for this project as she understands drawing as an act of listening. There’s so much overlap in our practice, even though we work in different mediums. Unfortunately I didn’t have enough budget to have 24 illustrations – one for each of the 21 chapters, preface, prologue and epilogue, so I invited Merlin to respond to one of the themes raised by each of the co-creators/pairs. I’m struck by the tenderness and the vulnerability of her illustrations, but also by their strength.
What do you hope people will experience when they engage with the project?
I hope people will take what they need from the recordings, whether that’s to feel validated, to feel less alone, to see parts of themselves in the stories of another, or to use it to inspire further reflection on the failings in the system, and where we go from here. I hope it starts conversations. And I hope it emboldens clinicians to, in the words of one of the co-creators, become the odd fish – the one who refuses to collude, and who challenges the system.
And finally, what legacy might the project have?
The work is going into several permanent archives, but I don’t want it to be shelved and wait for future listeners. I’m doing a lot of outreach work, connecting with survivor groups, health bodies, charities and educational institutions around the UK and beyond. It’s already been confirmed that it’s going to be incorporated into the teaching programme at one university in the UK, and this is where I think it has the potential to make real change. I’m fundraising to continue the work, and to bring more people into it. I’m knackered, but excited!
Biographies
Eve Loren is a multimedia artist, writer and cultural producer with 12+ years documentary practice including work for film, television, theatre and cultural institutions. Eve spent six years managing peer-led mental health services in hospitals, prisons, the community and online. Witnessing the catastrophic impacts of austerity, institutional racism, misogyny and discrimination in mental healthcare, she turned her practice towards collective listening as a means of examining power, privilege and injustice in the system. Eve has presented her work throughout the UK, in Europe and the USA. Her current research explores the rise of fascism in Britain, trauma, unspeakability and revolt.
Merlin Evans in an award-winning Medical Artist, Writer, Educator, Director of Drawn to Medicine and the founder of the online illustration school Inktuition. Merlin’s practice maps and draws the Anatomy of the Self – the stuff that makes us us. Not just the blood, bones and guts of classical medical textbooks but also the thoughts, emotions and memories that we house. Merlin sees drawing as an act of listening and is committed to using the arts to empower and advocate for patient testimony, placing it at the heart of healthcare service delivery.
Sam is a clinical psychologist working with young people and the systems around them.
With thanks to Eve and her team for this wonderful interview.
