As we reached the final week of the Scottish Mental Health Arts Festival 2025, Press Play brought our SMHAF season to a joyful and heartfelt close. Held from 7th-9th November at The Standard in Dumfries, this vibrant exhibition showcased the creativity, courage and imagination of participants from two of our core community-based creative wellbeing (social prescribing) programmes, which support people experiencing a range of barriers: Art Journal Project (adults) and Creative Toolbox (young people). CREATIVITY ACROSS GENERATIONS Press Play celebrated the unique… Read more

At the start of November, we partnered with Third Sector Dumfries and Galloway to host a special edition of the Mental Health Forum at The Grain Store in Dumfries. As part of this year’s Scottish Mental Health Arts Festival, the event brought together people from across the region to explore how creativity can comfort, challenge and inspire new ways of thinking about mental health. The room filled with warm conversation, hot drinks and quiet moments spent exploring the Art Journal… Read more

A message from our Creative Health & Wellbeing Director, Lucy Bell. 💡 From 2023 onwards, OutPost Arts has been FLAT OOT building, delivering, coordinating and evaluating ‘DG Creative Wellbeing’ – a partnership project that was made possible because of the amazing people working across arts, culture, social care and health sectors in our fabulous wee region… Before this project, D&G didn’t have a formal creative health programme, and while community creative prescribing was happening, it wasn’t receiving the attention, credit or… Read more

In partnership with NHS D&G, OutPost Arts recently launched ‘TWELVE’ – an evocative and deeply personal exhibition by artist Heather Bestel, which was presented as part of the Scottish Mental Health Arts Festival (SMHAF) 2025.  Created during the first year following Heather’s diagnosis of complex PTSD, TWELVE is a series of twelve mixed-media works, each representing one month of her healing journey. The collection explores the rawness, fragmentation, beauty and transformation that emerge from living through trauma and recovery.  Using… Read more

This November, we’re proud to be part of the Scottish Mental Health Arts Festival (SMHAF) – a nationwide celebration exploring how art, film, music and performance can open up conversations about mental health. The 2025 theme, “Comfort and Disturb,” invites us to think about how creativity can both soothe and challenge, helping us process emotions, connect with others and imagine new ways of being. At OutPost Arts, we believe that creativity can transform not only how we express ourselves but… Read more

This World Mental Health Day, we’re shining a light on the role creativity can play in supporting wellbeing. NHS volunteer Frank Ritchie has brought his love of art and music together in The Art of Giving – an exhibition currently on display at Dumfries and Galloway Royal Infirmary. Through colourful, uplifting works inspired by song and memory, Frank shares a deeply personal journey of loss and healing. We caught up with him to hear more about the exhibition, his volunteering,… Read more

Back in May, we launched the newest Creative Toolbox project, with sixteen new young people joining us alongside five returning peer mentors.  The group arrived with budding curiosity, eager to meet each other and play. It was exciting to see a new wave of energy enter Creative Toolbox at our Welcome Session.   This year, we partnered with Wonder Fools Theatre Company on their Positive Stories For Negative Times project.  They co-commission playwrights to create work for young people to engage… Read more

We’re excited to share the report from the Creative Health & Wellbeing Symposium, hosted by OutPost Arts in Dumfries back in February. The event marked the first of its kind in our region, bringing together arts, health, social care and community professionals to explore how creativity supports health and wellbeing. Spotlight on the Symposium The day was packed with inspiring talks, engaging performances and thought-provoking discussions. Attendees connected across sectors, shared innovative ideas and celebrated the growing impact of creative initiatives… Read more

Between April and June 2025, Midpark Hospital’s Atrium was transformed into a vibrant creative hub through a series of clay workshops led by local ceramic artist Ruth Elizabeth Jones. Over six fortnightly sessions, patients and staff came together to explore a new skill, ceramics, and in doing so discovered not just the joy of creativity but also connection, calm and community. These sessions formed the foundation of the Art Matters Exhibition, now proudly on display in the very space where… Read more

By Creative Toolbox Lead, Georgia Blue Ireland Earlier this year, I wrote about the writing workshops that Creative Toolbox participated in during their time as graduates and in partnership with The Stove on their Creative Caerlaverock project. At the end of May, The Stove put together a finale event for this which showcased the work of all partners, including us, at Caerlaverock Castle. So, what was shared and how did we get there?  After completing their writing pieces, the Toolboxers… Read more