What you’ll do
Join artist Andrea Mindel for a workshop about artistic practice, mental health and materials from everyday life.
Before diving into hands-on activities, discover our archive of scrapbooks, sketchbooks and notebooks that document the life and work of artist Audrey Amiss.
You’ll explore the relationship between artistic practice and creativity and how it can serve as a tool in managing mental and physical health and wellbeing.
Andrea will introduce ideas, guide conversations and support you through practical exercises to reflect on everyday life in your own artistic practice. You’ll create a fabric collage and visual diary to take home and continue developing.
All the art materials you need will be provided. Before the workshop, we invite you to collect receipts, notes, wrappers, pamphlets and fabric scraps from your daily life to bring along.
This is a relaxed event, so you can move around during the session. There will be a quieter room crafting as well as a Chill-Out Room with low lighting, comfortable seating, cushions, mats, ear defenders, earplugs and sensory toys.
What to expect
- Introduction to Audrey Amiss’s life and work, and our collection of her works (20 minutes).
- Practice different artistic techniques and experiment with everyday materials – paper, foil and plastic scraps – to make connections and begin to tell your story (40 minutes).
- Break (20 minutes).
- Create a visual diary inspired by Audrey’s artistic practice using pastel, watercolour, fabric and embroidery artworks that represent your workshop environment (2+ hours).
Need to know
Location
We’ll be in the Forum. To get there, take the lift or stairs up to level 1 and then follow the signs through the ‘Being Human’ gallery.
Place not guaranteed
Booking a ticket for a free, in-person event does not guarantee you a place. You should aim to arrive 15 minutes before the event is scheduled to start to claim your place. If you do not arrive on time, your place may be given to someone on the waiting list.
Relaxed
This is a relaxed event, which means that if you need to, you are welcome to move around and make noise at any time.
For more information, please visit our Accessibility page. If you have any queries about accessibility, please email us at access@wellcomecollection.org or call 020 7611 2222.
Our event terms and conditions
About your contributors
Andrea Mindel (she/they)
Artist
Andrea Mindel is an interdisciplinary artist whose practice includes hand embroidery as a form of fine art, drawing, printmaking, sculpture, film and performance. They use sculpture and fabric to explore urgent issues such as colonialism, genocide, climate change and the ongoing fight for disability rights, gender equality and racial justice. Through stitching as a form of stimming during public performances, Andrea challenges how society views both disabled bodies and mental health.
Bethlem Gallery
Contributor
Bethlem Gallery is a visual arts organisation in South East London. Established in 1997 at Bethlem Royal Hospital, London, and working across South London and the UK, it supports the professional development and socially engaged practice of the artists it works with. Bethlem Gallery bridges communities, aiming to make art an everyday practice and mental health an everyday conversation.
Image credit: Andrea Mindel © Rosie Powell