Are we living in 1984?
Before you start reading: this is not a post about cool 80’s music (that’s a blog for another day).
It’s a reflection on two O Street projects. One we have just finished, and one that is about to be released. But, more importantly, it is a piece about mental health.
@Photograph from Jack Arts
The one ‘we have just finished’ is the marketing for The Citizens’ production of 1984 in Glasgow (pictured above). The one ‘that is about to be released’ is ‘The diary of a Schizophrenic’. An exhibition of 4 years of self portraits by Jamie KIng. (pictured below).
Many of you I am sure will already know the premise of 1984, a dystopian future where individuals are controlled to behave (and think) in a very specific, government sanctioned manner. When I was sitting watching the show last week, it dawned on me that there are obvious parallels to the ‘The Diary of A Schizophrenic’ exhibition.
@Peter Dibdin 2026
We are hosting the exhibition as part of the Scottish Mental Health Arts Festival (an initiative we first worked with over 15 years ago). As a society we understand mental health much better than we used to. However, there are still stigmas associated with it. These stigmas prevent us from being able to help release untapped potential and opportunities for many people.
Stigma is not a government sanctioned censorship, like in 1984. But, it can have the same devastating consequences. We avoid talking or even thinking about the individuals who suffer. Not talking about mental health leads to a huge percentage of our population facing unnecessary hardships alone. The lack of conversation and the resulting knowledge gap dumbs us all down.
One of the main reasons we were keen to work on this exhibition was to break down these stigmas surrounding mental health. We wanted to help shine a spotlight on Jamie King’s work. While Jamie faces his own challenges, he has learned to harness them into powerful creativity as a painter.
It is a small part of the wider work the Scottish Mental Health Arts Festival is doing. We encourage you all to look at their wider programme. We also hope that we can all avoid slipping into a 1984 mindset, where stigmas around mental health control our behaviour like the thought police.
