St. Luke's Art Project

St. Luke's Art Project is an arts studio enabling local people, especially welcoming to those with mental health needs and emotional distress, to develop art skills in a safe, comfortable space in a local neighbourhood centre in Longsight, Manchester. The project is organised by artist Alison Kershaw with a small team of professional artists. It has been running weekly art drop-ins since 1993, as a not-for-profit organisation funding its own work through a small contribution from the NHS trust as well as small lottery grants.

On site at St Luke's Art Project is a small media suite where a range of creative media opportunities are on offer. Artist Rae Story runs the media suite and works one-to-one with participants to help them to realise their projects and ideas. Recent developments in Print-on Demand (POD) technology have been harnessed to develop a modest community publishing house - SLAP-DASH Publishing. Slap-Dash Publishing helps local people and artists with mental health needs and emotional distress to publish books including poetry, autobiography, visual arts, non-fiction and photo-essays. The project has been running since 2007 and boasts a small collection of published books which help to redress the balance in publishing and disseminating the work of disadvantaged, marginalised local people who rarely have the opportunity to share their work with an audience.

Find out more about St. Luke's Art Project online