In late June I took part as a graphic recorder to capture the conversation between Mind Cymru volunteers, staff, service users and artist Julia Thomas, who organised the session as part of her ‘Aletheia: In Unconcealment‘ exhibition at Arcade Cardiff. The above video shows me adding finishing touches and colours to the recording which took about two hours to complete from start to finish.

The discussion was interesting and for me the most inspiring part was about either public or personal metaphors – for example ‘The Stalking Beast’ for bipolar disorder, or “Little Man in the Corner’ for depression. Using visual metaphors can be very powerful in helping to talk about difficult or sensitive topics – it externalises the issue and can help make it easier to deal with.

If you would like to see some similar work, last year I captured a conversation between Cardiff Mind volunteers – you can see it here.

The video was shot by Julia and if you would like to know more about her work, visit her website.