TATE Online and Mental Health Awareness (Long Post Warning - Link to TATE at the end!!) - Emma T

For those of you who might be interested the TATE are running Uniqlo Tate Lates online tomorrow. They have lots of talks, music and film plus more planned from 7pm until 9pm.

However, being that Karen has asked us to consider our mental health this week I just wanted to draw your attention to one of the events.

20.20, Talk: Anna Farley and Hamja Ahsan:

Hear from Tate Exchange artists Anna Farley and Hamja Ahsan on making art in isolation. See their makeshift studios, the work they have been producing in quarantine and hear how the current situation has impacted those from the neurodiverse community.

Before I joined the Beacon I had the opportunity and privilege to support a young woman through her final year at Wimbledon College of Art on behalf of the National Autistic Society. That woman was Anna Farley. 

Having struggled with her mental health before also being diagnosed with Autism in her mid 20's, Anna has used her art practice to make sense of how she processes information physically and psychologically.

She describes photography as a really important part of her practice and life:

'it can talk for me when sometimes I can’t or I don’t want to. It can remind me of things I forget, and give me a calmness when I am about to choose to make a picture and helps me understand a sense of time and change in myself, the people around me and my environment and lifestyle.'

Anna has gone on to become incredibly successful, in spite of and most probably because of her experiences and has gone on to project manage numerous Art projects and workshops for fellow ASC adults, provides training on the Autism Spectrum and Neurodiversity and has had a number of solo and group shows. And now she is working with the TATE on their TATE EXCHANGE Project!

Having been on part of her journey with her and witnessing some of the challenges she has overcome I am incredibly proud and inspired by what she has achieved. Art has opened so many doors for her and has become a life line of sorts, even more so now I would imagine; just as it has for many across the world in recent months.

So I am naturally interested in seeing what she is up to and will be watching. If you are interested in this or Uniqlo Tate Lates in general here is the link: Uniqlo Tate Lates