Photography exhibition focuses on stigma of mental health

Jul 2 2010 by Denis Brown, Perthshire Advertiser Friday

PHOTOGRAPHER Graham Miller’s much-anticipated exhibition focusing on the stigma of mental illness opens tonight.

As reported by the PA in March, the Bankfoot lensman has visited the Walled Garden at Murray Royal once a fortnight during a 12-month period to shoot candid portrait images of workers

The installation – The Most Important People in the World: Honesty – at Birnam Arts and Conference Centre comprises poster-sized metal composite prints, which along with smaller A3 or A4 prints, are for sale.

All proceeds, excluding printing, materials and gallery commission costs, will be donated to the Walled Garden, a Perth and Kinross Association of Voluntary Services (PKAVS) project.

Describing the Walled Garden as “a very special place”, Mr Miller explained that his images were a reaction against the way mainstream society often pigeonholed people with mental illness.

“Because if they start to believe it themselves, they’ll begin to think that they’re a waste of time,” he said.

As a familiar face, he managed to gain the trust of workers and via a fly on the wall shooting style, captured his subjects in a natural state.

“I’ve got to know them really well, so they’re comfortable around me and the shots are not candid or posed, somewhere in-between,” he said.

Earlier this year, the garden was in the spotlight after the PA revealed the NHS was considering scrapping token wages paid to the former Murray Royal in-patient workers to save about £14,000 annually.

Historically, the 42 clients, all on medication, social benefits and working part-time at the 16-year-old Pitcullen House facility receive daily incentive payments of £3.04.

After NHS Tayside shelved its scalpel, PKAVS’s Karen Cowley relayed the good news personally to workers’ spokesman Ian Petrie, who had led the fight to save the wages.

Yesterday, Mr Petrie told the PA that he and his peers – 20 of whom will attend the 7pm-9pm exhibition launch tonight – were all looking forward to the positive exposure.

“Things are really great at the garden now and we just got £2000 lottery funds to buy a new shed,” he said.

“Some of Graham’s photographs have turned out brilliantly, some are simply unbelievable, and everyone here is 100 per cent behind the exhibition.”

PKAVS spokeswoman Helen MacKinnon said the exhibition and media coverage had raised the profile of the facility’s role in supporting people recovering from mental illness, as well as the self esteem of workers.

She said while the show marked the end of Mr Miller and his subjects’ year of dedication, it also heralded the beginning of a new chapter that would expose the project’s key messages to the wider public.

“It’s given the guys a real boost to know they’ll be part of this exciting exhibition,” she said.

l The Most Important People in the World: Honesty, is on at Birnam Arts and Conference Centre, Station Road, Birnam, Dunkeld, 9am to 5pm, seven days a week from tonight until August 3.