Creativity In Care

18/10/2026

Open Call – Artist/Designer needed!

The Highlands Dream Bank is seeking a designer to create a pull-up banner introducing the project at exhibitions, community events, workshops and other public engagement activities.

The pull-up banner will be visually striking and introduce the Highlands Dream Bank to members of the public, encouraging curiosity, conversation and participation.

This artwork, or elements from it, will also be used for wider branding on publicity materials (e.g. flyers and social media).

Please submit a single PDF containing up to five images of previous work that best represent your design practice. The PDF may include brief captions or project titles to provide context for each image
Please do not create a design proposal for this commission at this stage. We are selecting a designer based on the quality, creativity and suitability of their existing work.

The selected designer will then be commissioned to work with the Highlands Dream Bank team to develop the final pull-up banner.

Payment: £300

Background
The Highlands Dream Bank is a new community project led by the Highlands Psychoanalytic Collective and UHI Inverness working in collaboration with Scottish Mental Health Arts Festival Highland and Creativity In Care. It will explore what people across the Highlands are dreaming about. It is a creative way to bring people together to share what psychoanalyst Christopher Bollas called ‘the unthought known’. Sharing dreams together can build connection, creativity and resilience. The Highlands' distinctive geography, climate, culture, and dispersed communities might also generate powerful emotional and symbolic landscapes.

Highlands Dream Bank will collect, collate, and analyse dreams submitted from across the region to identify patterns of underlying shared meaning. These patterns/themes will then be used by collaborating artists in creative works to capture and reflect back salient and recurring contents of dreams. The project will culminate in a public archive, exhibitions, community events, written outputs, and a research report informing health, education, and cultural sectors.

Deadline Sunday 25th October 2026

Please send submissions and any queries to: [email protected]

The Highlands Dream Bank is part of a wider mental health collaboration involving SMHAF Highland, Highlands Psychoanalytic Collective, UHI Inverness and Creativity In Care, supported through the Highland Third Sector Interface Communities Mental Health & Wellbeing Fund for Adults.

10/10/2026

This World Mental Health Day, head along to the Scottish Mental Health Arts Festival Highland art exhibition and celebrate the incredible creativity and imagination of the artists from our workshops with Home-Start Caithness supported by Species on the Edge .

Creativity in Care is incredibly grateful to Highland Third Sector Interface for the Community-Led Local Development grant, helping us tackle poverty and inequality and make a positive difference for children, young people and families in our community.



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09/10/2026

We are delighted to be part of this collaboration with Highlands Psychoanalytic Collective, UHI Inverness and the Scottish Mental Health Arts Festival Highland - come along and be part of this amazing project with us!

What are the Highlands dreaming about? We all dream, although we don't always remember them. We dream about all sorts of things. People you know, houses that seem familiar but also strange. Animals, journeys, running, flying.

Psychoanalysis has always been fascinated by dreams because they remind us that our minds are much bigger, stranger and more creative than our conscious thoughts alone. We each carry a rich and complicated inner world that other people mostly never see.

Research during periods of enormous shared experience, for example the Covid lockdowns, found traces of collective anxiety, isolation and upheaval appearing in people’s dreams.

The Highlands Dream Bank is a new psychoanalytic, community and research project from Highlands Psychoanalytic Collective, working in partnership with Dr Marc Archer at UHI.

We’ll be inviting people across the Highlands to anonymously give us their dreams. Over time, we’ll explore what emerges. How does landscape enter our dreams? Do the sea, weather, mountains, distance and darkness find their way in? What about belonging and isolation? Work, family, change, loss, nature, anxiety, home? We're curious whether distinctly Highland patterns will emerge.

The Dream Bank is part of a wider mental health collaboration led by Creativity in Care alongside Scottish Mental Health Arts Festival Highland and supported through the Highland Third Sector Interface Communities Mental Health & Wellbeing Fund for Adults.

And we don't want the dreams simply to disappear into a research database.
We want to playfully bring them back into the community through Dream Cafés, Social Dreaming events, art and writing, a psychoanalytic dream film night, exhibitions and conversations, a Dream Tent at Belladrum Tartan Heart Festival in 2027.
A growing, collective portrait of the inner life of the Highlands.

Watch this dream space for more information or get in touch: [email protected]

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08/10/2026

Scottish Mental Health Arts Festival Highland is delighted to launch their 2026 art exhibition on the theme 'Reflections' celebrating the 20th anniversary of the Scottish Mental Health Arts Festival.

You are warmly invited to their informal 'Gathering' on Friday 9th October 2026 at Eden Court Theatre and Cinema (Inverness).
Feel free to drop in any time between 1pm and 3pm for teas/coffees and a chat.
Join them in the Stalls Gallery on the first floor where you can explore the exhibition which is featured across both the first and second floors.

The exhibition celebrates the importance of arts in mental health recovery and wellbeing. This year's theme has inspired many creative artworks from established artists and from people creating art for the first time.
Some of the unique artworks are for sale.

There's some fabulous artwork created through workshops and groups involving Rag Tag n Textile in Skye, Arts in Nature, Mikeysline, Creativity In Care, Green Tree Arts Studio, Am Fasgadh (Skye and Lochalsh Mental Health Association), Inverness Openarts, Brora Learning Zone, Centred Scot / The The Discovery College and much more.

Viewing:
The art exhibition at Eden Court runs until Wednesday 28th October 2026 in the Stalls Gallery on the 1st floor and the 1st Circle Gallery on the 2nd floor. Eden Court is open Mon-Tue from 4pm, Wed-Sun from 11am.

A sister exhibition will be running in the Bike Shed (Grant Street, Merkinch, Inverness) from mid to end October.
The SMHAF Highland exhibition will then tour to Thurso Art Gallery in November.

SMHAF Highland is grateful to have received funding from the Highland Communities Mental Health & Wellbeing Fund for Adults from Highland Third Sector Interface and the Scottish Government, as well as the Caithness & North Sutherland Fund

06/10/2026

*FULLY BOOKED*
We have a waitlist open and will get back to you if spaces become available.

Join Creativity In Care for a series of 4 free Gelli Plate Printing Workshops on the theme for this years Scottish Mental Health Arts Festival Highland - 'Reflections'

All materials are provided and you don't need any experience.
Held at the Community Room, Thurso Library.
2-4 pm, see the flyer for dates.

Email - [email protected] to book your space.

01/10/2026

We adore all things Flowmagic here at Creativity in Care

✨ Could there be a collaboration on the horizon…? 👀💫
​💛​ We’d absolutely love to explore what a little Creativity in Care × Flowmagic could look like!

​​🏃‍♀️​ Looking forward to seeing you all at The Vault, MacGregor's Bar on Sunday!

Molly Murray
InverNess Fringe Festival



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✨ We’re delighted to introduce our fabulous founder member of MACHAIR (Mindfulness, Arts & Creativity Highlands and Islands Roundtable) artist’s network - the wonderful Molly Murray of Flowmagic!

Molly will be at The Vault, MacGregor’s Bar as part of the fantastic InverNess Fringe Festival.

Come along, soak up the atmosphere, support Molly, and enjoy what promises to be a fabulous event! 💫

And make sure to give Molly a follow on Instagram and show some love for her creative work. 💜

https://www.instagram.com/writemakeflow?stkn=cjNldThoaTRndDJi

29/09/2026

🎬✨What a fantastic line-up of short film screenings! Come along, enjoy the films on the big screen and join us for the Q&A sessions. Hope to see you there!



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SHORT FILMS at EDEN COURT CINEMA
Sunday 4th October from 3pm - 5pm

Join us for an afternoon of short films exploring mental health & wellbeing, creativity, personal journeys and lived experience. Followed by Q&As with those involved in making the films with an opportunity for the audience to share their thoughts and join the conversation.

Films will include:
⭐️ Film about the recent projects in Highland by Arts in Nature working with Mikeysline
⭐️ Fragments of Us – a short film by Conner Brown on men's mental health supporting Mikeysline
⭐️ Reflections From Lived Experience - from Caithness Experience Matters Advisory Panel (CExMAP) - HUG (Action for Mental Health)
⭐️ Swell - by Highland-based artist Robyn Woolston about her brain tumour diagnosis (film commissioned by the Scottish Mental Health Arts Festival in 2025)
⭐️ THREADS from the DEEP - a short film by Robert Aitken about one of the world's foremost tapestry artists, Joan Baxter.

The Q&A panel includes Allana Stables from Mikeysline, Conner Brown who made Fragments Are Us, Charlotte Mackenzie from Arts in Nature and Robert Aitken (THREADS from the DEEP).

So join us for an afternoon of conversation and creativity around mental health in the Highlands.

Tickets £3 from Eden Court box office.
Some free tickets are available through festival partners and on the day from Graeme Watson (SMHAF Highland).
Contact: [email protected]

You will also be able to view some amazing artworks on display in the annual SMHAF Highland exhibition in the Stalls and 1st Circle Gallery upstairs at Eden Court which is being installed over the weekend. The theme "Reflections" celebrates the 20th anniversary of the Scottish Mental Health Arts Festival.


HUG (Action for Mental Health) / Mikeysline / Arts in Nature / Creativity In Care / Befrienders Highland/ Green Tree Arts Studio / Centred Scot / The Discovery College / People First Highland / Scottish Mental Health Arts Festival

20/09/2026

🎈The Scottish Mental Health Arts Festival Highland invites you to their Gathering at Eden Court on Friday 9th October.

✨ Come along to celebrate creativty, community and connection.

🎨 Meet the artists, enjoy the exhibition, and share in the conversation and ideas inspired by this year's Scottish Mental Health Arts Festival 20th birthday theme 'Reflections'

15/09/2026

The Scottish Mental Health Arts Festival Highland have posted a reminder of the key hand - in dates for their annual art exhibition.

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🎨 Key Dates! - SMHAF Highland Annual Art Exhibition 2026 🎨

A little reminder that we’re looking forward to this year’s SMHAF Highland Annual Art Exhibition at Eden Court Theatre and Cinema, Inverness, before touring to Thurso Art Gallery in November.

🖼️ Key dates for submitting your work:

📅 Monday 21st September, The Discovery College, Wick, 1pm - 3pm
📅 Tuesday 22nd September, Community Room, Thurso Library, 1pm - 4pm
📅 Thursday 24th September, The Bike Shed - Events Venue/Coffee House, Inverness, 12noon - 3.30pm

🌿 Whether you’re an experienced artist or creating something for the first time, we’d love to see your work and celebrate the incredible creativity across the Highlands.

We can’t wait to see how you interpret “Reflections” and to bring everyone together for another inspiring exhibition!

If you have any queries about submitting your artwork to the exhibition, feel free to contact our SMHAF Highland project officer Donna Murray on [email protected]

03/09/2026

Absolutely beautiful work and such a lovely reminder of the power of creativity to connect, inspire and bring people together.
Give Laughing Geese a follow for further creative insight, meaningful practice and so much more.