Dwell Time

Dwell Time Interview with Richard Price, British Transport Police on World Mental Health Day 2019.

Content warning: Discusses suicide prevention on the railways.

Part 1 https://vimeo.com/372175283

Dwell Time Interview with Richard Price, British Transport Police (Part 1) from Dwell Time on Vimeo.

Part 2 https://vimeo.com/372175731

Dwell Time Interview with Richard Price, British Transport Police (Part 2) from Dwell Time on Vimeo.

Dwell Time ran a workshop at Creative Recovery Barnsley last night reading and discussing:

Philip Larkin’s This Be the Verse
Siegfried Sasson’s The General
and Hollie McNish’s On the Train with a Toddler

And these are the following poems created:

Lark Vs McNish by Janet

Muck better than #@%& swearing
as you’re airing
words that when ‘earing
can cause bewaring
as everyone starts staring,
moving and despairing,
lest they’re caught mouthing,
mouth something they naught want to be heard.

Brat, full of chit chat
Snotty, spotty
Smearing in face
A face that should’ve been seen not heard

Painting the right way up
Head at the top
Feet on the floor
Then when it moves with cream air
The palpable air of fear – see feel #@%&

When asked to lick the ‘ice-cream air’
Mr Larkin seems to be in a mood
His language of an age
Suitable for who, when, where,
Is he any worse than those in the prose?
No speech
Just freaks
Full of oh’s and ah’s
No sound
Abhorrent reaction on the train

Confusion – them not her
But she don’t care
She know who, what and where.
She has her mum, her chum, to back her up.

Fog by Rhiannon Rees

Fog creeps into the bones
Rain swamps the soul
Lost and don’t know which way to go.
To be heard – oh to be heard
Above the rain and through the thick fog.

Depression by Joy Bishop

Depressed
Anxious
Feeling alone, helpless, frustrated, anger, mixed emotions,
up and down like a roller coaster
Round and round
Emptiness
No energy. So hard to get up.
Not liking the skin I’m in.
Afraid to go home, open that door and it all comes rushing back.
Afraid of the dark, you can feel it coming
The night, the nightmares
And afraid of the unknown.
Indecisiveness.
Like banging your head on a brick wall.
Staring
Thinking
Worrying about what’s been and what’s to come
Confusion
Do I? Don’t I?
Feeling alone, afraid of being alone
with my thoughts and feelings
Just want to be free, free from me
Happy and at peace
I found a faith
But sometimes I forget I’m in his hands.

Untitled by Lee F Halstead

Feel like I won’t have a voice
Nobody listens, can’t get my point over,
WORSE!!!
People: “MENTAL HEALTH?!!”
Lost faith in them

I suffer with depression, bipolar and anxiety, very often
and get very angry and frustrated
My coping strategies are:
Music, singing and self-meditation to chant music.
Seem to listen to lots of music
Can’t do with politics.
Love the sun – lifts my spirits
Puts a stride in my step
Boosts my confidence and mood
Love singing all types and upbeat and emotional songs
My conduct born
Place I like to be.

Inside My Head by Joan

My head can be full
Thoughts I want to chase away
Go away, please don’t stay
Swirling, curling, trying to take over.
Where is my off switch please?
It is in me
Change my thinking.
I will stop sinking.

Day by Day by Phil Watson and Ben Whewall

Feeling The Drain of Everyday
Day by Day
Just in the way.
A way of hope, way of aspiration
Aspiring for a bit of inspiration.

This isn’t the way
The way it should be.
I used to be happy
One day you see

Coping with stress, the stress of life
All in all it’s such a strife
When seeking help, falls on deaf ears
All I can do is reduce to tears

This isn’t the way
The way it should be
I used to be happy
One day you see

All in all, it’s just too much
Life in general is hard as such
Life’s not fair, he once did say
Just don’t let it get in your way.

The Way it Should Be by Phil Watson & Ben Whewall

This isn’t the way
The way it should be
I used to be happy
One day you see

But all’s not lost, in this weary day
As I have dear friends that are here to stay
They might not change the drain of each day
Bit hope and strength they send my way.

Butts by Anonymous

Where ends meet in perfect separation
with no shape but their own
a new definition ceases to be

When distinction has no meaning
and nothing is different
what else could ever be?

You look left and right
halted by decisions
there is nowhere to go

but with no where to go
now you can understand
where you could be

Mental Wellbeing Arts Publication ‘Dwell Time’ Receives Rail Industry Funding

The team behind the new arts publication reflecting on mental wellbeing ‘Dwell Time’ are thrilled to be the recipients of funding from regional network rail providers and the national community rail association to produce a second issue of their popular publication.

The founders and producers of Dwell Time, artists Alice Bradshaw, Vanessa Haley and Lenny Szrama, along with their partners at Penistone Line Partnership (PLP), are delighted to have been backed by Department for Transport, Association of Community Rail Partnership (ACORP), and Train Operators CrossCountry and Northern.

The publication was launched in March 2019 and features art, poetry and writing about mental wellbeing and is distributed primarily along the Penistone Line as well as nationally and internationally. Dwell Time also has an art trail at the railway stations along the picturesque railway line between Huddersfield and Sheffield. The contributions that are included in Dwell Time are submitted through an international open call and are also produced in local workshops run by the artist team.

“Our aim is for the publication to raise awareness about mental wellbeing through the creative expression of the people who have a story to tell and that may then benefit others in some way by reading it,” says Alice Bradshaw of Dwell Time. “We want to platform the brilliant work we’ve received about this still-taboo subject – so we can all learn from each other and know we’re not alone in having what are actually very common issues. Everyone has mental health just like they have physical health, which may be good or not so good at any given time, and may need as much care and support. Art and creative writing are ideal forms to express emotions which are often hard to put into straightforward language.”

“Art about mental wellbeing is not all about painting rainbows and flowers,” co-producer Lenny Szrama adds. “We’re interested in the realness of lived experience in people’s own words and we don’t edit or gloss over that. We make a curated selection of contributions for the publication to produce a quality piece of work, but we also ensure every contribution is published on the website so that everyone who wants to be involved can be in some way. Of course, there are certain types of things we wouldn’t publish for safety reasons, as we are mindful of triggering content, and we also publish a directory of support services in our publication.”

Vanessa Haley explains why they started the publication: “Our very good friend took his own life two years ago and he had been a huge advocate of the role art can play in raising awareness of important social issues. He actually left us with a bequest to do something around the problems he struggled with through our work as artists and curators. Through an organic process of meeting people and seeing what could be possible, Dwell Time was formed.

Rowena Chantler, Community Rail Officer at Penistone Line Partnership adds: “Penistone Line Partnership are very proud to be supporting the second issue of Dwell Time. The first issue was very well received and we look forward to building awareness of mental health further within the Rail Industry and with rail passengers.”

Carolyn Watson, Community and Sustainability Director at Northern said: “We’ve been delighted to support Dwell Time. We’ve been asking our own staff and customers to take a moment to consider their own mental health and wellbeing, and to look out for others. So to be able to support a project so closely aligned with our own values, and one that helps break down the barriers that still exist to talking about mental health has been really important to us. We’ve also been able to showcase Dwell Time to other community groups we work with and hope that will help the project reach even more people.”

Alex Bray, Stakeholder Liaison Manager at CrossCountry continues: “We are incredibly proud to support the Dwell Time project. Using different forms of art they have proactively tackled a very topical and serious issue of mental wellbeing. Publications like Dwell Time will hopefully be a game changer for the industry in supporting the those are having a challenging time with mental wellbeing.”

Issue 1 was produced on a shoestring budget with a huge amount of the team’s volunteered time so they are delighted to be able to build upon this hard work through significant funding from the rail industry.

Shortlisted for the Community Rail Awards 2019

Dwell Time are also celebrating being shortlisted for the Community Rail Awards in the category Community Art Schemes: Renewable and Smaller Projects. They will attend an event for the national awards in October and are delighted to be shortlisted for the award.

Dwell Time Exhibition at Huddersfield Railways Station

A Dwell Time exhibition is currently on show in the main waiting room of Huddersfield Railway Station featuring artwork from Issue 1 and pinhole camera portraits by Bob Clayden and Rose Knight which they took on Platform 2 at Huddersfield Railway Station during the Issue 1 launch in March 2019.

Future Plans and How to Get Involved

As well as a second open call for contributions that will run until the end of December 2019, the team will be running workshops with community groups in partnership with local organisations and conducting community interviews. A launch event is scheduled for March 2020 with Huddersfield and Sheffield railway stations as the main destinations. The team are currently planning the launch event and welcome anyone interested in getting involved to contact them. They are also available for running creative workshops focussed on mental wellbeing with any interested groups – with the option for participants to then submit their work to the publication.

Details of how to contribute to the second issue of Dwell Time can be found on the Dwell Time website: https://dwelltimepress.wordpress.com/open-call/

https://dwelltimepress.wordpress.com

[email protected]

We were at the Northern Community Rail Conference at the Hilton Leeds on Monday promoting the project to the rail sector and potential future partners. The response to the project was really positive and we made a lot of great connections there. We are currently discussing the potential to begin rolling Dwell Time out across the Northern network in Year 3 and beyond!

Next week we are due to attend the Northern Community Rail Conference 2019 in Leeds. We’ve had to order a Dwell Time Issue 1 reprint to have at the conference as we’ve practically run out of copies!  It’s due to be a full day of talking about the project and showing off the brilliant contributions we’ve published.