As an artist or professional working in creative industries, following your dream ain’t as easy as it seems and looking at the world, being a human might be the most difficult thing to be. Minds of Arts want to give artists’ and professionals the opportunity to express themselves and share their art for more humanity in creative industries.
We had an opportunity to speak with Minds of Arts to talk about their awesome organization.
Tell us about Minds of Arts
Minds of Arts started in February 2017. To be honest, the story of how we started is quite funny. Since I (Row) started studying the music industry, I’ve been curious and passionate about mental health in the music industry. I think that watching “Amy” (the documentary about Amy Winehouse) changed my life and helped me to understand that I wanted to help artists in any way possible. After that, I decided to enroll in the MA Music Industry Management and Artist Development at the University of West London where I met Giulia and AK. We were lucky to get support of the course leader as well as his University sidekick and lecturer of the Leadership and Creativity module. I was encouraged by them to research about mental health, a topic that is still a stigma in creative industries. My MA dissertation was about finding resources to help artists with mental health issues, from stage fright to deal with depression. At the end, I understood that no matter if you are a famous artist or not, or the field that you are, it can be from acting to dancing… Everyone needs support. Everyone needs to be heard, everyone needs to know that they are not alone.
After finishing my MA, I started to work as a professional in the music industry but the information that I had from my own research was on my mind all the time. I tried to think in a way to help artists and practitioners but I didn’t have any idea of how I could do it. Until, one day, I came up with the idea of Minds of Arts and, quickly, I send a message to Giulia and AK about the idea and asked them if they wanted to help develop the idea. Giulia and AK, undoubtedly, accepted and helped to build this project with their own ideas.
You’re looking for stories from people working in creative industries, to share their experiences. What type of stories do you seek?
What we look for is real stories, that’s the only prerogative. Every person has a different background and went through unique experiences and that’s what we want to know and share with everyone else. You never know what might inspire other people, or simply what they might find interesting. We want to know what happened for real in someone’s life, because there would be no point in sharing fiction, and we want to focus on thoughts and feelings.
What is your goal for Minds of Arts?
Our goal is to share real stories. In times like these it doesn’t take much to feel overwhelmed or to find a reason why, but Minds of Arts will always be there to listen. There is a difference between hearing someone and listening to someone, but listening is so important. We didn’t start Minds of Arts to tell people how best they can work on their career, but rather “Hey we know it can be tough sometimes, but you can make it. You are not alone in this”.
Do you have any special events planned, to showcase the stories you receive?
We do not have any special events planned at the moment as we are working on building a community, but in the future we want to combine music concerts with panel discussions and talks. We want to build not only an online community but connect people to each other. During our time as students, we were taught that networking is key in creative industries, but looking at it from the outside it takes a lot to just go and talk to someone, therefore we want to take people by the hand and show them that we’re all humans in these industries and we are happy you chose this path.
What do you want people to experience, when they read the stories from creatives?
That they are not alone and that they can make it. Without a doubt, creative industries are tough. As an artist, you offer your insights to the outside world, you make yourself vulnerable and open for critique. As a manager, you have to understand the importance of mental health and health in order to keep your artist on track even with tons of pressure in your back.
At the end, if just one person finds hope and inspiration in one of the stories we share then this already means the world to us. We want to applaud everyone who chose the path of wanting to work in creative industries and we want them to know and understand that whatever they want to achieve, they can make it and we are here to listen in the meantime.
Being music artists, we certain you have your own stories to share. Please share one with our readers.
The way that we started this project is quite a curious story. As I (Row) mentioned in the first question. I was constantly thinking about how to help artists and practitioners within creative industries. Until one day, before I went to sleep, I came up with an idea of creating a platform to share stories. I remember I couldn´t sleep that night because I was thinking about the name of the project! Next day, at 8am, I texted Giulia and AK and that´s how everything started. I trusted AK and Giulia because I know they had different struggles and different starts. We come from different fields of the industry, different backgrounds, different countries with different music industries! But our philosophy is very similar, and that´s the most important thing.
Our stories were the first ones to be on our Facebook page and we encourage people to read them to know more about us!
Is there an organization you would like to collaborate with?
We think there are tons of great organizations we would like to work with. As we as Minds of Arts ask for more humanity and equality in creative industries, it would be great to collaborate with organizations like shesaid.so which is more an online community, but they do incredible work for women in music and as young women at the beginning of their careers that truly was and still is an inspiration on our side.
Collaborating with organizations of artists like the Born This Way Foundation of Lady Gaga would also be great. When it comes to change, we can’t expect it to happen overnight, but if we come together, the impact might last a lifetime and the impact Lady Gaga for example had on the LGBTQ-Community or what she did for sexual assault survivors is outstanding.
Besides, Help Musicians UK and PRS Fund for Music do incredible work to help musicians to be able to make music in the UK. Sometimes life gets tough and you have to step back from your career in order to heal and that’s when these organizations step in and say “Hey, don’t worry about money, we got you. Focus on your health”.
Focusing in other creatives industries, Minds of Arts would like to work with organizations such as BFI (British Film Institute), BAFTA Guru in which they organize talks and Q&A to inspire people, or charity organizations such as Masterclass, which support a program with inspiring talks, workshops and creative opportunities for young people.
What is your most favorite story you have received?
Every story has a special sparkle; it wouldn’t be fair to say we prefer one to the others. What we find very satisfying is reading the comments to the stories, good or bad: this way we know the story we shared is having an impact, is making people think and express their feelings.
List the 5 things you like to see occur for Minds of Arts?
At the moment, we are very open about things that we would like to see occur for Minds of Arts. Probably one of the things that we would like to do is to write a book with a collection of the stories and photos that people sent us. Or probably a compilation with songs and artwork by the artists we shared.
We also have the idea of doing a documentary with the stories that we have. That could be a great way to help people to understand each other.
Do you have any upcoming projects that we haven’t mentioned?
Not yet, we’re thinking about some sort of celebration for when we reach 1k likes on Facebook, but it’ll have to be a surprise 😉
Complete this sentence, if I had an opportunity to change anything, I would change ___________.
(AK) Entry levels for people starting out in creative industries. We do understand unpaid internships, but we all need to live. It is so easy to forget how your own career started once you crossed that line between having a career and still being at the starting point, but we’ve all been there and to open young people the door is key to the future. We all did and still do mistakes and we should keep doing them. We all had to start somehow, so let’s allow an easier entry to our industry.
(Row) the mental health stigma. Sometimes when I am on social media, like twitter, I see people joking or even romanticizing mental health issues. There´s something I will never forget and it was the day when Robin Williams died. I read lots of comments saying “oh, he was famous and rich, why did he kill himself?” or just calling him selfish for committing a suicide. That show how society has this stigma around mental health. For these type of comments, there are a lot of people out there who are afraid of speaking out about their mental health problems or asking for help. One in four people suffer deterioration of mental health every year in the UK. We need to hear and help each other, and of course, educate ourselves so we can know that this can happen to anyone in any moment of their life. This is the only way to end this stigma
Connect with Minds of Arts:
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/mindsofarts
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