Photograph by Daniel Regan.
The Free Space Project, an arts and wellbeing charity, is currently hosting a thought-provoking exhibition and series of workshops on suicide and mental health at the Kentish Town Health Centre in North London. Photographer and Free Space Project Artistic Director Daniel Regan’s project I Want to Live is a series of interviews and photographs taken from Maytree, an organisation based in a residential house in North London that provides a safe, non-judgemental space where people experiencing suicidal thoughts can stay.
Displayed in the award-winning exhibition space, and GP waiting room, on the first floor, are short interview transcripts and photographic portraits. Although individual and uniquely moving stories, collectively the emerging narrative establishes the driving force behind the volunteers, to listen and to be heard. Alongside these are photographs taken at the house that depict everyday domesticity, a cup of coffee or unmade bed, the traces left behind by those who have stayed before. These images generate an overwhelming sense of reverie, of time passing, and yet also of a state of transition, not unlike your everyday surgery waiting room.
Reflecting Maytree’s non-clinical approach to suicide in a clinical setting highlights the synergistic role of art in health care, and importantly in tackling the barriers that remain when talking about mental health.