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As an artist I would say that my identity is what drives me creatively. Since I can remember, the experience of being a black woman in this society has always been very overwhelming. The way I learned to deal with this was thought art, using it as a way to translate my vision, experiences and emotions. In fact, that’s one of the reasons why chose a path in arts, because I fell in love with how I could use it to express myself.

Being black drives me creatively for so many reasons, because blackness is so complex and there is so much that comes with it. From struggle, to pain, grace, talent or creativity, all these things drive me and inspire me creatively. The current project I’m working on is a photography project titled “Disrupt the Standards”. The aim is to highlight women of colour, through their photographs and their experience on not fitting the European standard of beauty.Usually when I am not creating, I feel that I am swimming against the current of a river, however lately I do not feel as motivated to create. The reasons range from feeling insecure when it comes to my artistic skills, to the current world situation.

With the protests happening because of the Black Lives Matter movement I’ve been feeling really overwhelmed and my creativity has been all over the place. There are days I want to turn to my creative side and express all the anger I feel constantly, but there’s also days I don’t want to create at all because I feel too overwhelm, anxious and hopeless. But I’ve been learning to breathe and to deal with all of it on my own terms, and that’s what I would advise to my fellow black people. Take your time and remember that the process of healing is not a race. And if you’re a black artist, use your art to cope with all this. Stay safe.

Ana

Mind Over Matter is a piece I wrote last year when I got sober after a twenty year battle with depression and addiction.

Writing in any form provides me with therapy and has always been the only way I can express myself positively.

Mind Over Matter is also the name of the event I run where we discuss mental health though Spoken Word and Hip Hop which I also started after getting sober.  As well as helping others, Mind Over Matter has become my rehab and genuinely keeps me sober.

https://www.instagram.com/mindmatterldn

Video shot by:

https://www.instagram.com/maxandharryuk/

https://www.instagram.com/triggercrappy/

For: https://www.instagram.com/wordofmouth.london/

Naomi Knox is an actor, writer and all-round artist.

The question ‘What leads your light?’ evoked many emotions. Reminiscing about her childhood and struggles with her own voice, Naomi opens up about what ignites the light in her.

My name is Minnie rai and I go under the title @splitmindpoet on Instagram. I started the account as a way to help myself and many others to voice their unique voice that is uninterrupted on a mental health platform.

Confidence is something I have been fighting alongside my mental health battle for over two years. I used to be the most confident girl in my high school, my friends, my teachers and anyone that ever met me. Yet no one noticed how easy it is to lose your confidence due to a series of unfortunate events in life as it is to gain it.

I am a prime women of my generation and the gap in our society has been noticed my groups like yours and by independent voices like mine that have had to fight for their corner when the corner has always been their – but we felt little or no confident in that corner, because over time it has taken a long time to get to this stage. Some may argue that perhaps we have fought alongside other women for almost a decade to just get to this platform we have identified in 2018.

My poem although a short piece focuses on the idea of detaching from what takes confidence away and how to realign your fears into series of definitions of confidence that we have already surrendered our mind to but we need to start acting on them. The longer we leave it behind, the slowly the path to growth becomes and now is not the time to act that way. We must know what it means to be a woman of today’s generation.