Celebrate the launch of a new comics-inspired exhibition featuring highlights, outputs and artwork from two recent arts projects around mental health 'The Art of Mental Stealth…a comic approach', and 'Making Connections 2024' which culminated in the creation of a graphic novel written and illustrated by Nottingham based young people from community group Outburst and students at NTU Confetti Campus. The team are delighted to launch 'Crooked Seams – a collage novella of gothic horror' at their exhibition launch event alongside young collaborators and creatives.

About the event

On the night you will hear from project coordinators and collaborators from MindTech at the Institute of Mental Health, and Ignite!, as well as artist Liam Mills (Sealight studios) and Graphics Lecturer Peter Abrahart from NTU Confetti. The team will introduce both projects and think about potential next steps for collaborations around comics, zines and mental health. You will have an early chance to browse the exhibition artworks and read Crooked Seams, hot off the press. You are also invited to join a zine making workshop with a chance to make your own zine.

Event outline

17:00 - 17:30 - Registration, mingle, view exhibitions, refreshments*

17:30 - 18:00 – Launch of Art of Mental Stealth & Making Connections Exhibition; Launch of “Crooked Seams”  - A collage novella of Gothic Horror.

18:00 - 18:45 - Zine making workshop led by Liam Mills – come along and make a zine, join discussions about future collaborations, or simply browse the exhibition and flick through Crooked Seams

18:45 - 19:00 - Next steps and closing comments

*Some food and refreshments will be provided at the event, but we cannot guarantee that specific dietary requirements will be catered for.

About the project

The Art of Mental Stealth… a comic approach was a project that thought creatively about how to deliver mental health messaging and interventions for young people in Nottingham, by nurturing creative skills in visual storytelling as a bridge to self-awareness, expression and shared understanding. The project kickstarted a city-wide conversation exploring intersections between comics/graphic novels and mental health interventions, the therapeutic potential of creation, and how young artists are already merging these worlds.

In this exhibition the team document their discussions and showcase work from creative projects around Nottingham, including:

• Matthew Gill, Senior Lecturer at NTU and founder of Nottingham based zine and print studio RawPrint
• Lecturer at NTU, Illustrator and fine artist specialising in graphic novels Madeline Burt
• Professor Heike Bartel at UoN passionate about mental health and arts-based training tools
• Ethan and Naomi Sacks, authors of 4 issue graphic horror mini-series A Haunted Girl inspired by Naomi’s battle with depression
• Casey Soma, a social entrepreneur and multi-media artist and founder of Mad Truth
• The Centre for Social Future's project with Aardman What's Up With Everyone?
• Artist Shamila Chady and young people from NEST a unique educational provision for refugee and asylum seeking young people
• Liam Mills, a fiction, games and graphic novel writer at Sealight studios
• Ali Jeffries, artist passionate about mental health

Making Connections

In this project Melanie Wheeler (Ignite! Community Programmes Lead) and Liam Mills (Sealight studios, lead artist) worked with Outburst (16-21 LGBTQ+ youth group at Base 51) and graphics students from NTU Confetti Institute of Creative Technologies, in collaboration with University of Nottingham to design, develop and create a graphic novel to  explore the theme of mental health. The project builds directly from ‘The Art of Mental Stealth… a comic approach’.

In this exhibition the team document the creative process of developing a comic on the topic of mental health and what was involved in translating the story and words provided by young people at Outburst into illustrated pages by graphics students at Confetti.

More information from

Joanna Lockwood, project lead of The Art of Mental Stealth and Senior Research Fellow at the University of Nottingham specialising in young people's mental health