Postcards From The Edges

Chris Wright, now 32, has had depression and social anxiety since he was five and by the time he was 11, had attempted suicide three times. “I wouldn’t wish a mental health disorder on anyone but I wouldn’t change it… It’s who I am,” he says. “[But] I can count on one hand the people who will to talk to me about my problems.”

It was this sense of stigma around mental health, particularly suicide, that inspired him to make a private snapshot of his life public and turn his childhood medical records into art.

Wright is one of over 500 contributors to Postcards from the Edges, a website and upcoming series of nationwide exhibitions that allows people with disabilities and mental health needs, their families and carers, to express what’s important to them, using a single postcard. “That could be any 11-year-old boy [on those records],” he says of his entry “Welcome to my world… That could be you or somebody you know.”

“The format of the blank postcard allows participants to respond in the way that suits them best no matter what physical or mental challenges they may face,” explains Su Sayer, chief executive of United Response, the disability charity behind the project. Some postcards have been sent in with poetry on them; others are photographs, digitalised art, paintings, stories, or collages. “We’ve even received knitted postcards,” she adds.

Postcards from the Edges has attracted celebrity attention. Oscar-winner Emma Thompson, Olympian Sally Gunnell, musicians Suede, Paralympians Hannah Cockroft and Dame Sarah Storey, and Kelly Knox, model and former winner of BBC’s Britain’s Missing Top Model, are among those who have created postcards. But, from the beginning, this was a project about reaching people who are often marginalised. “This project is about creating a platform where people who often feel they are on the edges of society can make themselves heard,” says Sayer. “When we first sent out the postcards, we simply wrote to people and asked them: ‘What do you want to tell the world?’. Some of the most moving postcards we’ve had back are from people who don’t feel they are part of the mainstream … essentially saying: ‘This is me, I have something to say.’ This was about giving people a voice.”

Voicelessness inspired Amy Simmons, 28. In her postcard, “Autism, from the inside out”, she depicts a sense of daily life in which she is both ignored and has her own condition dictated to her by others. “Often, non-autistic people assume they understand us more than we understand ourselves,” she says. “Some … perceive normal emotions differently in us. Anger is ‘aggression’, love is ‘infatuation’… Autism can cause issues in itself [but] most issues we face are from ignorance.”

Simmons is studying for an MPhil at Birmingham University, but at her previous university was often ignored. Tutors would regularly address her support worker, rather than herself, as she sat in front of them, she says. Simmons also talks of her experiences when volunteering in a charity shop, where she says she found herself excluded from many tasks. She was not allowed to use the kettle at first and was mainly asked to clean, usually upstairs away from customers. “When I attempted to engage in conversation, one of the staff exchanged knowing glances with customers, then giggled as I walked away,” Simmons’s postcard was a way of expressing anger at this sort of discrimination, but also pride in her autism, and determination to make a positive change.

This sort of personal, honest perspective was central to the idea of Postcards from the Edges and it is furthered by how varied the contributors are: submissions came from across the UK and even as far afield as Baltimore in the US, and from a huge array of people, including older people with mental health needs, the mothers of children with autism, cancer survivors, people with physical disabilities, school children, social workers, actors and artists.

The content was equally diverse. “Just as we didn’t want to tell people how to express themselves, we also didn’t want to tell them what they should say,” says Sayer.

For some contributors, this meant giving harrowing depictions of isolation from society. For others, it was about the freedom to be overtly political – often directed at recent changes to social security, such as the “bedroom tax” or cuts to disability benefits.

Ian Pyper, 58, chose to target Atos, the much-criticised private company charged with determining which disabled and long-term sick people are unable to work, in his postcard. With the words ‘Swallow the lies and watch who dies’ around the image of a man with a knife in his throat, Ian’s postcard is an angry commentary on the reported number of claimants who have died shortly after being found “fit to work”.

Pyper’s wife Christina has a genetic degeneration of the spine as well as chronic fatigue syndrome (ME) and has just started her own application for employment and support allowance. “[She’s] now on the treadmill of the Atos process,” he says. “She’s quite unwell at the moment. The thought of a forthcoming Atos assessment is just adding to her daily stress and fear.”

Pyper only has two fingers and a thumb on each hand due to his mother taking an anti-nausea tablet during pregnancy, but is Christina’s full-time carer. It means that things are extremely difficult for both of them right now. “I’ve tried to stay positive during the last few years, but the rise of Atos has really frightened me, we’re both quite fearful. My art is my only voice,” he says.

For other contributors, such as Sarah Bailey, 35, the postcard became a way of expressing something hopeful and positive. Bailey has a learning disability and lives alone in a supported living home in Nottinghamshire, with the help of United Response staff. For much of her life, due to mental health problems, she has been in and out of secure units. “I hated it,” she says. “They made me very unhappy.” The move to supported living was tough at first. Bailey became very angry, she says, and started to cut herself. She’s since adjusted with a new 24-hour team of support and her daughter, 16, can now visit her once a week. She no longer self-harms. “I want people to know everyone can change and get better,” she says. “I used to have a bad life and never felt good about myself.”

Her postcard is dedicated to this change. “I decided to draw a sad Sarah and a happy Sarah,” she says. “It was nice to look at the change in me and made me feel great about myself. I wear makeup and style my hair to make me look and feel good about myself…[In my postcard] I wanted to show the new Sarah.”

Expressing herself through her appearance is also important to Sue Kent, 51. It’s been a long-term struggle though as, due to Thalidomide, her arms are 8 inches long and she has seven fingers.

“I love clothes but so often I can’t wear [what’s] in the shops”, she says. “Over the years, I’ve turned to shoes as an expression of my sense of fashion.”

Her postcard, with its bright image of teetering red heels, confronts the idea that disability demands stagnated sexuality. In the poetry on the postcard, she teases the status quo that suggests she should be more sensible and wear flats. Kent also wanted to bring out the notion of tackling people’s preconceptions around disability. “As we look different, we’re forced to accept that many people need a moment to adjust to the visual difference,” she says. “I’ve found that if I wear a stunning pair of shoes people look at my feet and legs first and it seems to influence their attitude before they get to my arms. The initial opening remark isn’t ‘Oh, aren’t you brave’ but ‘Where did you get those shoes?'”

The Postcards from the Edges project, is a chance for the wider public to counter preconceptions around disability and gain a better understanding, says Sayer.

“There are no stereotypes. These are postcards from individuals, who have many different things to say,” she says. “Anyone who clings to stereotypes about disabled people will have to give them up once they’ve seen a few of these cards.”