No Bad Parts, 2026

Artist Film, exhibitions at Danielle Arnaud gallery, Forma, Brickworks Museum

No Bad Parts, the final film in my trilogy exploring the intersection of film, psychology, and choreography, is a 10-minute single-channel moving image work that investigates memory through the lens of Posttraumatic Growth (PTG). It examines human interactions, enacted by professional performers, to explore mental health, trauma, memory loss, and the positive transformation that can follow trauma. The interactions draw on first-aid gestures — acts of care that paradoxically appear violent. These tensions are amplified through sound design and the use of the film’s location as a vital character. Drawing inspiration from Slow Cinema (Bresson, Hogg, Tarr, Ozu), it is shot in black and white with shallow depths of field and tight framing to create an intimate, immersive experience.

Recent projects demonstrating relevance & experience with post-traumatic growth in contemporary art:

Paul (2015) is a two-channel video documenting a live memory game centred on Roberto, who recounts a fragmented memory of his uncle’s suicide — a Polish migrant who died in French Guiana. The story is retold by others, including a Lebanese participant with lived experience of war, revealing how trauma evolves when mediated through multiple perspectives. As the narrative shifts, the work explores the instability of memory and the emotional residue of grief and loss. Safeguarding protocols were integrated throughout the process: a qualified counsellor was made available to all participants, and the filming was supervised by a wellbeing coordinator from Apollonia to ensure emotional safety during potentially triggering discussions. I also collaborated with Apollonia staff to provide French and English captions, quiet reflection areas, and physically accessible seating, embedding care, inclusivity, and trauma-informed practice into both production and presentation.Locusts (2024) is a film commissioned by IWM’s 14–18 NOW Legacy Fund and Brickworks Museum, built around testimonies from Southampton residents reflecting on childhood memories of post-Blitz bombsites. Performed by actors lip-synching the real voices, the film reveals how wartime trauma echoes across generations, shaping identity, memory, and resilience. Developed through trauma-aware focus groups and aligned with IWM’s safeguarding policy, the project prioritised emotional safety throughout. I worked closely with venue teams to ensure full accessibility — providing captions, quiet zones, and relaxed screenings for neurodiverse, elderly, and mobility-impaired audiences. At Brickworks, I incorporated their Makaton and dementia-friendly practices into the film’s pace and structure, making it accessible across age and ability.

Target Audiences. My wider moving image practice actively contributes to current developments in moving image and wider contemporary art trends and is regularly included in contemporary art exhibitions and festivals. The themes I explore are relevant to the current discourse around identity politics, family dynamics and layered story telling. Visually inspired by the Slow Cinema and produced to very high standards, my work is informed by research into psychoanalysis and personal experience of trauma. My target audiences for this activity are three-fold: 1) CONTEMPORARY ART AUDIENCES and the cultural world. I wish to further my artistic practice in moving image making and in addressing the complex issues of our times. I seek to engage with arts professionals (curators, directors, critics, collectors); artists and film makers; regular art audiences; students and graduates and those interested in cultural experiences (cinema, the humanities and psychology). 2) WELLBEING AND IDENTITY My work speaks to audiences with lived experience of neurodivergencies, depression, mental health and trauma. It articulates complex issues that I have lived experience, have thoroughly researched and having been trained to address. 3) Wider audiences that don’t necessarily engage in contemporary art. My work employs storytelling and universally accessible methodologies to engage wider audiences and spark their interest. Through striking visuals, careful choreography, an emotive score and high production values my activity will invite audiences to ponder on universally shared questions of family dynamics, common emotions of empathy and fear and contextualise them with the help of professional curators, academics and health professionals.

Institutional partners and their audiences. BRICKWORKS MUSEUM (BM) is integrated into its community, working closely with IMPERIAL WAR MUSEUM (IWM) on the 14–18 NOW Legacy programme, which addresses questions of grief, trauma, the heritage of conflict, community cohesion, identity and well-being. They have spent 3 years gaining knowledge, experience and skills in contextualising and presenting work that resonates with my project. They have the resources, skills and marketing campaigns to reach both live target audiences and wide national audiences digitally. DANIELLE ARNAUD GALLERY (DAG) will support the project with production, including filming locations; a 2 month solo exhibition and a public programme of artist talk and curator tours. DAG has 30 years experience in presenting moving image and will ensure I reach the contemporary art audiences I seek in London and provide a huge professional development opportunity for me to reach collectors. FORMA is an ACE NPO with experience in presenting contemporary moving image, including their flagship Artists’ Film International. I have a studio at FormaHQ and will work closely with Forma to deliver open studio and network events, a screening and a talk, reaching my peers, artists, press and wider audiences in Southwark.
STUART CROFT FOUNDATION (SCF) and ARTS TERRITORY (AT) are commissioning organisations. As non-venue-based organisations they focus on nurturing partnerships and building audiences through rigorous commissioning, contextual work and strong attention to audiences. They have strong digital reach globally and will focus on my digital assets and wider international reach. SOHO HOUSE (SH) awarded me a prize and will expose my work to new audiences, collectors and create a buzz around this activity.

Communications and marketing . I have confirmed specialist comms and marketing support from teams at DAG, IWM, DAG, Forma, SCF, AT and SH. These 7 orgs will coordinate a campaign that includes shared visual assets and print and digital campaigns to reach target audiences: 1) Print posters, booklets, handouts, banners and even post-cards that have partner logos, boiler plates and key information. 2) Digital campaigns on all 7 websites and each partners social media (instagram, Facebook, X, but also a trailers on Youtube 3) Press releases sent to national newspapers, art magazines, local newspapers and outlets, digital platforms and listing websites 4) Targeted project packs for editors, writers and critics. 5) Bespoke marketing for medical and mental health organisations www.mentalhealthtoday.co.uk; www.happiful.com; www.therecoveryletters.com; https://www.mind.org.uk/; www.ptsduk.org; but also academic outlets such as: www.cambridge.org/core/journals/the-british-journal-of-psychiatry; www.bacp.co.uk amongst others.5) Liaison and collaborating with over 35 local organisations in SE London and Southampton relevant to the work and wider projects such as Harris Academy, Tower Bridge Care Home, Culture WithIn Newham, JMB Housing to name but a few. 6) Film trailers on Instagram and Youtube along with targeted paid campaigns. Partners have allocated a total of £1,600 towards marketing costs (digital assets and campaigns and print materials + design work) along with the in kind time of all 7 marketing teams. To reach these audiences there will be on street posters in Southwark and Southampton, printed booklets in IWM and BM, print advert in Art Monthly magazine. Marketing reach is: 1.6 million on instagram; 163k on Twitter; 441k on Facebook and 4 million digital visitors a month across all websites.

Lambeth audience. DAG is based in Lambeth, home to over 37,600 people with a common mental illness and one of Europe’s highest psychosis rates. Collaboration with Maudsley Charity will help reach these audiences.

Southwark audiences: I will work with Forma and IWM to engage with the thousands of students they work with each year as part of their Improving Mental Health and Resilience in Schools (IMHARS) programme. Our key targets are: Sixth form / college students using IMHARS frameworks and seeking resilience through art; Young adults (16–25) engaged via Nest and Groundwork with lived experience or vulnerability to PTSD, trauma or social isolation; Care-experienced and crisis-affected youth, connected through OASIS (via SLaM NHS Foundation Trust) and Catch22, who can benefit from shared storytelling and healing. Total estimated reach in Southwark is 10,000. Much of this work with IWM will be directly shared with Brickworks and their outreach team. Furthermore, via Forma, Entelechy Arts, Link Age, NHS, IWM and Tower Bridge Care Home I will engage up to 30,000 adults aged 60+ who receive mental health and social support (800 through Link Age alone and 4,000 via Ageing Well Southwark — 1,810 activity sessions with 23,626 attendances). These groups — many affected by dementia, isolation, PTSD, or bereavement — represent a vital audience for our trauma-and-memory–themed film project.

Southampton audiences:. Approximately 18.7% of Southampton’s population (about 52,000 individuals, including nearly 3,500 older people) have a common mental health disorder — significantly above the national average. Anxiety (33.8%) and depression (12.8%) rates are notably higher than in England, while roughly 725 emergency self-harm admissions per 100,000 people persist. Mental health service referrals for 0–18-year-olds jumped 134% between 2021–2024, indicating rising concern in youth. Key partners at MH Collective and Solent Mind PTSD will help reach 300 to 500 participants. Steps2Wellbeing and iTalk will help reach up to 3,000+ young adults, who will be invited to screenings along with key mental health professionals, ensuring safe debate and support.

Personal and professional experience of trauma: I am a Complex PTSD survivor with diagnosed ADHD and depression, raised in a low-income, post-communist Polish countryside. Growing up with emotionally unavailable parents and no mental health support, I was labelled "difficult" and forced to forge my own path to healing and adulthood. My journey has included individual and group cognitive therapies, EMDR, IFS constellations, Lowen’s workshops, and somatic practices like Movement Medicine and Ecstatic Dance. I’ve also received training in meditation and Internal Family Systems. For years, my art practice has explored trauma and post-traumatic growth, including talks (most recently at the Imperial War Museum, 2025), workshops, and projects with vulnerable groups. Collaborating with therapists, curators, and educators, my work investigates relationship dynamics, unhealed trauma, and psychological transformation — challenging norms around men’s mental health and advocating for collective healing.

1) For my project Locusts, I worked with elderly people who formed a focus group to share memories of the war and its effect on them; 2) Art School+ training in 2023 to gain skills and knowledge to develop community-based projects; 3) I was a guest speaker at the IWM symposium on 13.02.25, which addressed the effects of trauma on collective memory; 4) Koppel Project Space Symposium, 3.07.25, for which I was invited to speak about intergenerational trauma; 5) I undertook a 10-day course Embodying Health — a therapeutic and creative retreat that fosters artists’ responsibility to nourish the collective and teaches somatic skills.

Research: Men’s mental health and masculinity (my art practice, books); Internal Family Systems by Richard C. Schwartz (books and therapy); ADHD Mindfulness Training. My mentor, Steven Eastwood, works with neurodivergent people — see this Wellcome film.

1) Researching ADHD, training in meditation and Internal Family Systems; 2) Coaching from Laura E. Fischer from www.traumascapes.org; 3) Accessibility advice by Dr. R. Martin, Director of Participation and Mental Health Champion at Whitechapel Gallery; 4) Working with Dr. Grace Crowley — Clinical PhD Fellow, ESRC Centre for Society and Mental Health (CSMH) at King’s College London.

Safeguarding: As well as my recent training, the DOP Rosie Taylor will be the production first aid lead. Safeguarding Leads within the wider project include: Françoise Harris at IWM; Penny Cameron Watt at Brickworks Museum; and Caroline Heron at Forma — all of whom have received appropriate training. I will also be working with professional Intimacy Coordinator Corina Andrian and coordinator Sophie Cooch to create safe spaces to work, with strong protocols to protect all cast and crew, while articulating these themes to audiences with consideration and professionalism. I have been referring to the IWM Safeguarding Policy. Furthermore, I have been liaising with and funding work by Psychologist Rebecca Day (Film in Mind) to extend support to production teams and inform contextual materials for curators.

1) BFI/BAFTA Set of Principles on bullying, harassment, and racism in the screen industries — includes clear guidelines on respectful workplaces, reporting structures, and duty-of-care measures; 2) BFI/BAFTA Harassment Prevention Guidance; 3) BFI Diversity Standards for Film: Duty of Care Section; 4) BECTU (Broadcasting, Entertainment, Cinematograph and Theatre Union); 5) BECTU Six-Step Plan for preventing bullying, harassment, and ensuring emotional safety on productions.