Our 2023 Projects
Celebrate, Reflect, Create: Achieve Recovery Fund 2020/2021
In Feb 2020 we were awarded another grant by the Achieve recovery fund.
This has allowed us to provide access to arts and celebrate the achievements of those living with/in recovery from substance misuse and mental illness across Greater Manchester.
The project was postponed due to the pandemic, however, it is now back in full swing and has consisted of digital photography workshops (A big thank you to Dave McNabb for being our guest photographer www.dmcphotographic.co.uk), mixed medium art workshops, film commissions and more.
There was an exhibition at our gallery space between 16th -18th June 2021 and participants will also have the chance to contribute towards our anthology based on the Breakdown Bolton annual theme of Reawakening.
As part of this project, we also commissioned a film by an artist with lived experience of mental illness/substance misuse issues to highlight the dangers and journey of a person experiencing problems with substances. The film ‘Then the drink takes you’ by Manchester based artist Wesley Charles, will be shown at our Film premiere and birthday celebration event in August 2021.
A special thanks to Salford CVS, GM10, & Achieve for making this project possible. Please feel free to view the work created in this project via our online exhibition.
Health and Wellbeing: Funded by Bolton CVS 2018-2021
In 2018 we received funding over 2 years to run workshops that promote improved wellbeing for those living with mental illness across the Bolton area.
So far, we have worked with many different organisations such as Mhist, St George’s Day Centre, All Souls, Little Lever Life Support Group as well as our own groups at Neoartists and virtually during the pandemic.
The workshops have been in a variety of art forms including print, creative writing, book making and more.
The work from this project has been displayed at several exhibitions across the last three years with our most recent printing course being displayed in June 2021.
Participants of the course in 2021 will also have the opportunity to contribute to our annual anthology with a theme of reawakening.
Thanks to Bolton CVS for funding this project.
Physical Fridays - with thanks to Bolton CVS Physical Alliance 2020
With the aim of improving physical wellbeing and encouraging people living with mental illness to be increasingly active, we ran a series virtual dance workshops in the summer of 2020.
These were free for people to attend and included Zumba, Swing, and Bollywood dancing.
The sessions were enjoyed by all who attended and we’d like to say a special thank you to the instructors we collaborated with including Gabriella Luby, Angie Devi & Jennifer Bennett Price.
The Great Mask Sewing Bee - Bolton's Fund Covid-19 Engagement
During the local lockdown in Bolton, Bolton’s Fund made grants available to organisations who would carry out activities around raising awareness and instigate action regarding Covid-19.
At Breakdown Bolton, we ran an awareness programme that included several aspects in helping to protect our community and environment.
We produced hundreds of facemasks as part of socially distanced sewing days, via zoom workshops and through posting out craft packs to people who wanted to help those most in need. Whilst some of these facemasks were donated to people who knew the people who made them, a great deal more went to local causes such as Urban Outreach Bolton, Fort Alice, and Little Lever Life Support Group amongst others.
The awareness campaign was run at the same time and was a photography trail showing the impact that discarded facemasks have on our environment. This is currently on display upstairs, in a shop unit display window, in The Market Place Shopping Centre, Bolton, where it is currently.
Finally, those who took part in the project had the opportunity to contribute to a community quilt with messages of information, safety, and hope with regards to Covid and this will be displayed in our gallery window when this lockdown lifts later this spring.
This project was led by textiles artist Jennifer Gilmour and supported by other local artists with lived experience of mental illness. It ran between September and December 2020 in Bolton.
With thanks to Bolton’s Fund, Platform 5 Gallery for allowing us to use their workshop rooms, The Market Place Shopping Centre, and the people of Bolton for making this happen.
Some images from this project can be viewed below.
Time
The theme/concept we worked with for this shop window exhibition was time. The project ran throughout 2019 and early 2020 with arts workshops funded by Greater Manchester Mental Health NHS Foundation Trust.
In preparation for creating these pieces we looked at different ways time runs throughout our lives from the days and months to ageing and different life stages. The work created for this project included a combination of prints, sculpture, and bookmaking inspired by this concept.
As an introduction to our project, we spent our first workshops looking at the seasons. These workshops consisted of ‘season’ themed discussions and then a practical art session based around what had been discussed.
The first workshop culminated in a Gelli Plate printing session using leaves and other time inspired objects. Some of these prints can be seen here.
Whilst most people looked at the seasons as Winter, Spring, Summer & Autumn, others explored different kinds of seasons. The second workshop explored a person’s own ‘seasons’ and this became a bookmaking session in which our groups made a ‘season ticket’ of their lives inspired by actual memories, events and hopes for a future time.
The third workshop was focused upon using clocks to create ‘clock face portraits’, bringing to life some of their ideas of what time might look like. These portraits can be seen around this exhibition.
In the fourth workshop our groups discussed what had been important in their own lives. The practical session resulted in the group creating personalised time capsules that they would leave for another era. Some of these pieces had unique names such as ‘A Valentine’s Ball’ and ‘the pen is mightier than the sword time capsule’.
With thanks to the groups at St George’s Day Centre, Honeysuckle Lodge at The Royal Bolton Hospital and those who attended our own workshops at the NeoArtists gallery space.
Life Stories
Life stories is a multi-art form project which blends together creative writing, story telling and book art. We work with participants to create a narrative about their lives using a mixture of truth and fiction. We explore topics like symbolism and fantasy, using common forms of story-telling like “being lost in the woods”, being given a magical gift, growing wings and taking flight. Each person will use these stories to create their own book art through collage, watercolour, and sketching
The “Life Stories” project is accessible to all skill levels, including people who have special needs for reading and writing. People can choose how much they would like disclose or how factual their account will be. Our lives are a mixture of adventures and misadventures which shape where we are today.
Duration: We have run this project over 4 weeks and at another time over 5 weeks. Each session lasts for 1.5 to 2 hours. Each workshop can also work as a stand alone workshop.
Group Size: Up to 12 people with two facilitators.
Materials: Photographs, upcycled books, magazines, newspapers and selection of unusual objects.
Identity
For this project we look at the theme of identity as a fluid concept, using the graphic novel as inspiration and working with creative writing, sculpture and collage techniques. We chose to work with the graphic novel as within this genre there are constant shifts of identity, including that to “Superhero” status. This leads to an unrestricted exploration of the participants’ identities. Personal identity is heavily shaped by those around you, as well as the cultural and physical environment you are surrounded by or have been raised in. Through graphic narrative and story telling the ‘rules’ and ‘boundaries’ of these worlds are defined by the characters in them rather than the other way around which gives great value to personal identity and allows participants to reflect on these fictional identities and explore their meaning unhindered. As participants navigate and create relationships between narrative, character, and environment, this may act as a metaphor for seeing themselves as authors and artists of their own lives.
Duration: We have run this project over 8 weeks and also at another time over 5 weeks. Each session lasts for 1.5 to 2 hours. Each workshop can also work as a stand alone workshop.
Group Size: Up to 15 people with two facilitators.
Materials: found objects, including, nuts and bolts, old tins, wire and cables, household objects, precious objects and ethereal materials.
Being Human
Working in partnership with Bolton Museum and Library Service and Bolton at Home we devised a series of creative workshops based around the concept of ‘Being Human’. We believe these to be a non-stigmatised exploration of human experience, taking inspiration from the five ways to wellbeing. We used a non-direct philosophical exploration of subjects such as memories, happiness and sense of place. We linked with The Happiness Letters, part of the Mass Observation Worktown Collection, to make sculptural, installation and photographic pieces.
Duration: 3 hour workshops over 4 weeks. Each workshop can also work as a stand alone workshop.
Group Size: 12 participants 2 X facilitators
Materials: Books, papers, collage, Umbrellas, postcards, fabrics, found materials, sound
In Her Words
Exploring the inner lives of women, we work with the concepts of - freedom, weight and constraint, and where a women’s place really is in contemporary society. We work with disassembled doll houses, doll house furniture and mixed media materials to express the concepts from creative writing exercises. We ask questions such as “Which three inspirational women would appear at your ideal dinner party?” and discuss the glass ceiling, motherhood and the things that keep us strong. Within this project when previously run, there was a real sense of comradeship, with women supporting and empowering each other.
Duration – 2 hour workshops over 4 weeks. Each workshop can also work as a stand alone workshop.
Group size : Up to 16 participants 2 x facilitators.
Austerity
We look at the changes in Bolton Town Centre, the closure of small businesses, the increase of betting shops and cuts to mental health care, PIP and other support. We discuss the effects austerity measures are having on people living with a mental illness in Bolton and use humour to challenge the oppression we feel.
Duration – 2 hour workshops over 4 weeks. Each workshop can also work as a stand alone workshop.
Materials – Board games and playing cards, photographs, papers, fabric, scratch cards, toys, canvas, recycled medication packets and other materials.
Group size – Up to 12 people X 2 facilitators.
Journeys
Exploring the theme of “Journeys”, looking at real and fictional journeys, as well as exploring the concept in a philosophical way.
We also explore the idea of “Emotional baggage” developed around a theory that at any time you only have emotional space for 100 people in your life. We ask people to use materials conceptually and show us their emotional baggage, good and bad.
The poetic narratives developed around the sculptural objects stretch back through memory, to childhood, buttons and marbles representing childhood toys. Sometimes prickly materials are used to express to sharpness of experience.
We also explore career journeys. As a group we describe Monday morning in our “dream jobs”. People may choose to be philosophers, singers, and successful business people to name a few. We travel from Barcelona to Alaska through a variety of writing techniques. We build sculptural “Career ladders” using driftwood, bamboo, ribbons, string and nails, conceptually exploring the barriers and brightness of fulfilling employment.
Duration – 2 hour workshops over 12 weeks, repeating 4 week blocks of workshops 3 times with different participants. Each workshop can also work as a stand alone workshop.
Materials – Various bags and containers, toys, vinyl records, bamboo, driftwood, ribbons and fabrics, feathers and marbles, sand and soil and more.
