Every year the groups involved in planning the national Scottish Mental Health Arts Festival come together with the Mental Health Foundation to select a new theme for the festival.
Reflections
In 2026, the Scottish Mental Health Arts Festival celebrates its 20th year. It will be an opportunity to recognise two decades of mental health and creativity while looking at where we are now and where we might go next.
Our theme for this milestone year, Reflections, invites artists, communities and audiences across Scotland to pause, take stock and explore how our experiences, stories and creativity shape our mental health, individually and collectively.
Notes from the Mental Health Foundation:
Reflections invites us to slow down in a world that is moving so fast it can feel impossible just to keep up with events. How do we take time to reflect when each day’s headlines seem to bring fresh news of political, economic and environmental upheaval? How can we properly understand our own needs when our lives are seldom calm and charged with uncertainty?
Creatively, Reflections is intentionally open. It might suggest lochs, disco balls, light or mirrors, inspire questions about what you see when you look at your own reflection, or make you think about how, in these culturally polarised times, some of the most extreme voices seem like mirror images of each other.
Going beyond literal imagery, Reflections invites us to consider introspection, self-awareness, memory, identity, consequences and echoes. It also offers the chance to explore the ways that art reflects and shapes the world around us, offering joy, discomfort, catharsis, awe, confusion and clarity. Reflecting can be grounding or unsettling, celebratory or challenging, but always contains the possibility of personal and collective growth.
Our theme also encourages us to look back at SMHAF’s own journey. For 20 years, the festival has championed the voices of people with lived experience, challenged stigma, shaped conversations, inspired movements and celebrated creativity in all its forms. Reflecting on this history means asking what has shifted in the mental health landscape since 2007, what progress has been made, what barriers remain, and how we sustain spaces for expression, solidarity and action in the years ahead.
Whatever Reflections means to you, we hope you will join us as we mark our 20th Year. We’re inviting you – organisations, artists, communities and individuals – to help us bring our Reflections theme to life, and explore how looking back can help us imagine what comes next.
Whether you’re working on a creative project, have an idea for an event, would like to help develop your local programme, or want to talk about anything else, please get in touch. We’ll also be celebrating our 20th Year throughout 2026 so we would love to hear from anyone who has a story to share about SMHAF from our history.
About the festival
SMHAF is led by the Mental Health Foundation and is supported by Multi-Year Funding from Creative Scotland and national partners including the Baring Foundation. The festival takes place across Scotland and covers all artforms, reaching around 17,500 people each year.
The main festival takes place in October/November. Here in Highland we will be holding events from May 2026 onwards.