Ahead of World Hepatitis Day this year, the HepCScot partnership is running a community art and digital photography competition, using visual art as a means to bring together and connect people living with hepatitis C and to highlight the issues which people living with the virus face every day.
As part of this, Hepatitis Scotland (HepCScot.org) are running community art workshops, led by experienced artists, in different locations around Scotland. Workshops are currently available in Forth Valley, Lanarkshire, Lothian and Tayside, with a further two at Glasgow Museum of Modern Art (details to come). The workshops will assist people affected by hepatitis C to draw or paint a self-portrait, helping to visualise issues around identity and stigma, and how it affects people living with hepatitis C in Scotland. The workshops will be relaxed, with all levels of experience welcome. Art is a personal journey that ranges from stickmen to the Mona Lisa. Entry to the competition is not limited to those attending the art workshops.
A National Photography Competition will also be running with the same theme. Participants can upload their entries on the HepCScot.org/HepatitisSee site.
Prizes will be awarded on World Hepatitis Day on 28 July 2017. Prizes include:
All participants of both competitions will have ownership of their art. They can choose to submit their artwork for a public display at a national event organised by Hepatitis Scotland (details to be confirmed).
If you are living with or affected by hepatitis C, we’d love for you to join us on an artistic journey to express how you experience attitudes of others towards you, and more importantly, how you view yourself.
If you know or work with people who have been diagnosed with hepatitis C please share this opportunity with them, and to your networks.
Visit www.hepcscot.org/HepatitisSee for further information.
Follow the campaign on social media:
#HepatitisSee on Facebook and Twitter
HepCScot on Facebook
6 Comments
This is a great idea. I wonder how represented will be those infected/affected due to contaminated blood and blood products compared to other routes of transmission? Hopefully some of us will take the chance to participate. I imagine it could be quite cathartic to express in art how we feel about our situations.
Yes, it could provide a very useful vehicle to help overcome the stigma many people have felt, associated with HCV. Thank you for your comment!
I think that personalising it and displaying the fact that I have been given this terrible disease does the exact opposite..
I just sent them an email saying I wanted to go to the workshops. Within the hour it was confirmed that I was signed up. So easy. Why not have a go folks, after all it says it’s for all abilities or none. You might find it makes you feel better to express your thoughts and concerns in a creative way.
Well done! Please let us know how you get on.
So I just got back from the first workshop. It was all good. There was not an intimidating big crowd, in fact it was quite cosy. We all had plenty of one-to-one time with the tutor. The big news is that the completed art pieces will go on display in the main hall of the Glasgow Museum of Modern Art on 18th and 19th July. Also, they expect to have works displayed on 28th July (World Hepatitis Day). Not only that, there is also the digital photography competition. You don’t need to go to the workshops to submit entries for that. So why not have a go by sending in an image (see main news item for information), and/or plan to visit the museum on one of the days. The 28th July slot is to be an interactive event for the public at large.