Sweet Sounds in Wild Places

In response to the world wide increase in Mental Health & Well-being issues suffered by people, particularly by women and girls as a result of Covid 19 lockdown 2020- 2021, a team of multi-art form artists from Scottish Opera worked with a group of women in the rural Scottish Borders region to develop coping mechanisms via the medium of music, visual arts and creative writing to address a range of issues including loneliness, social isolation and feelings of disempowerment and to help build emotional resilience.
Workshops in creative writing, musical composition and a wide range of visual arts including photography, mixed media and technologies and sculpture were delivered in two locations in the Scottish Borders region for around 40 participants ranging in age from 17 to 65 years. The workshops were promoted through a range of local health care and cultural partners including the NHS Border Mental Health services teams and the social prescribing network. The sessions were advertised for women, transwomen and those wholly or partially identified as female as the aim was to provide a safe and supported emotional environment for the participants to discuss and explore creative responses to a wide range of life challenges including loneliness and social isolation, bereavement as well as relationship issues, coercion, lack of self determination and self-esteem. Many of the women and girls who attended the weekly workshops shared their own experiences of situations where they felt unable to control their own lives or felt dominated or repressed by those around them. They were encouraged to contribute to the development of a narrative structure for the (eventual) exhibition - divided (like many operas ) into four 'acts' - each of which represented a stage in the disintegration of Lucy/Lucia's mental and emotional health: however with the final act (IV) being an affirmation of the truth that they had capacity to change their personal narrative and avoid becoming a 'victim' like Lucy/Lucia.