Welcome to our North Ayrshire Mental Health Arts Festival site!
Our festival runs each year in October but our team work all year planning and designing creative projects and encouraging community involvement and participation.
In North Ayrshire we believe the promotion of creative arts is essential in supporting mental health and wellbeing and provides us with opportunities to engage with people within our communities that may not have done so using traditional methods.
Incorporating the creative arts into our every day practice provides the opportunity for individuals to explore mental health themes that can be difficult to approach and express themselves, experience peer support and importantly challenge stigma and discrimination.
Our festival is open to everyone in our community and we hope you enjoy finding more about what we do here regularly.
Recent posts
- Reflecting back to plan the year aheadWe’ve got loads of awesome ideas we can’t wait to share with you, but until then, why not check out our flip book from last year for some inspiration? You can find it here: https://heyzine.com/flip-book/396d1292a7.html. Although our festival is North Ayrshire-based, you will notice that over the years we have welcomed a growing number ofContinue reading “Reflecting back to plan the year ahead”
- Its that time again! Call for events and ideas for this years festival (2026).Wow, can you believe it’s already April? It feels like just yesterday we wrapped up last year’s festival! We are pleased to share that planning is underway for this year’s North Ayrshire Mental Health Arts Festival, taking place from 20 October to 9 November 2026. This year’s festival theme is Reflections, inviting creative responses thatContinue reading “Its that time again! Call for events and ideas for this years festival (2026).”
- Capturing Wellbeing: Exploring creativity through photographyWhen we started Ayrshire Film Co. CIC, I held a strong belief that film could positively impact our local community. What took me much longer to realise was this; the act of participation often creates a greater impact than the final product itself. Over the years we’ve been involved in many community projects and haveContinue reading “Capturing Wellbeing: Exploring creativity through photography”
About us
Our North Ayrshire mental health arts festival team is made up of partners from North Ayrshire Health & Social Care Partnership, North Ayrshire Council, NHS Ayrshire and Arran and third sector organisations. In addition we have a range of supporting artists, technical staff and volunteers all of whom help us to deliver a programme of events and projects each year.
Our joint working approach means we can utilise the skills and expertise of all those involved ensuring the festival is accessible to all and responds to the needs of our communities, services and supports.
We work closely with the Mental Health Foundation who run the National festival programme with regional partners. Connecting with other programmes across Scotland allows us to show case our work on a larger platform and continue to promote the importance of this work we all take great pride in.
Our North Ayrshire festival is now in its 3rd year with previous years themes being around ‘Revolution’ and ‘in/Visible’.
North Ayrshire Mental Health Arts Festival 