Medication, Making & Mental Health

Panel discussion with Asa Aryoshi-Pope, Madinah Farhannah Thompson and JGrrey. Chaired by Stef Felton

As part of Where Is My Mind?, we were joined by artists Asa Aryoshi-Pope, Madinah Farhannah Thompson and JGrrey for a conversation about medication, mental health and artistic practice.

The discussion took place at Kavel Rafferty Space in Margate during Asa Aryoshi-Pope’s exhibition Knotweed. Using the exhibition and the artists’ own experiences and practices as a starting point for a wider conversation about medication; we discuss what it means to take it, choose it, change it or live without it, and how these experiences can intersect with creativity and making work.

Chaired by artist and creative producer Stef Felton, the panel explored the personal, practical and cultural questions surrounding medication and mental health, while considering how artists navigate these experiences within their practices.

This was an open conversation rather than a clinical discussion, and created space for different perspectives and experiences of medication, treatment, mental health and creativity.

The event was part of Where Is My Mind?, a programme exploring mental health, neurodivergence, identity and the complex relationship between our inner lives and the world around us.

About the Exhibition

Where Is My Mind? is interested in the messy, personal and sometimes contradictory realities of mental health. Rather than presenting a single idea of what wellbeing, difference or neurodivergence looks like, the exhibition creates space for multiple experiences, perspectives and ways of thinking.

The conversation around parenthood, mental health and maintaining an art practice sits within this wider context. For many artists, the ability to make work is shaped by care, money, time, family, access and mental wellbeing. This panel opens up that conversation through the lived experiences of artists who are navigating these pressures alongside their practices.