The Connor Brothers on male suicide and art as therapy
Twelve weeks ago my brother hung himself by a dog lead in the garage of my Mum’s house. He spent five days in an induced coma. When he came around he’d lost four years of memories and couldn’t make new ones at all. The worst was that he’d forgotten that our Dad had died, and we had to constantly remind him. He’d hold his hand to his mouth in disbelief before wailing as if learning of it for the first time. An hour later he’d say ‘where’s Dad?’, and we’d have to start over.
This wasn’t my first encounter with suicide. Not even my first encounter in the past year. Twelve months earlier a different sibling attempted to gas himself in a car. I sectioned him and he spent six weeks in a chronically underfunded run-down mental hospital in South Wales.
I’m not angry with them. I get it. I really do. I’ve been there myself. Close anyway. What’s difficult for people who’ve not experienced suicidal depression to understand is that no-one actually wants to kill themselves. Not really. It’s rather that the emotional distress is like torture, and like physical torture there is a point at which the pain becomes so great that you just want it to stop. Dying becomes the lesser of two evils, not killing yourself an act of heroism.
All of my adult life I’ve suffered bouts of suicidal depression. The last was in 2012, and it was coming out of that period that The Connor Brothers were born. When planning for The Other Art Fair I was thinking about that time and I realised this is the longest period I’ve had without feeling suicidal.
Maybe it’s a coincidence. Maybe it’s the meds. It might just be correlation and not causation. But what if making things has dramatically improved my mental health? What if there’s a link between working as The Connor Brothers, writing and making on a daily basis, and freedom from depression? What if creating things and mental well-being are connected to one another?
We live in a society where the phrase ‘to express yourself’ has been reduced to a dress code at shit nightclubs. Not as nauseating as ‘dance like no-ones watching’ as a social media status, or an excessive use of exclamation marks, but not too far behind either. But what if the cliche contains a kernel of profound truth? What if finding a way to express your feelings and thoughts rather than containing them, is one of the keys to having a happier life? What if making things, alongside family and friendships and taking openly about our problems with one another, can improve our mental health?
On Sunday 7th of October, we will be exploring the links between masculinity, mental well-being and creativity, alongside CALM (The Campaign Against Living Miserably).
Twelve men take their own lives every day in the UK and countless more attempt to. It’s the biggest killer of men under forty-five and claims more lives than cancer, heart attacks and deaths by violence combined. That’s why we’ve chosen to work with CALM and to raise awareness of the issue and to support their attempts to reduce the number of male suicides.
At The Other Art Fair we will be exhibiting twelve unique works, and releasing a print in an edition of eighty-four, the number of men who kill themselves in the UK every week. All of the proceeds will be going to CALM. We will also be presenting an interactive project – Postcards to Strangers – highlighting the idea that small acts of kindness can have dramatic effects to someone who is struggling.
To attend the talk, click here for tickets.
‘Those who say it cannot be done’, 42cm x 29cm. Edition of 84, signed and numbered, £120 inc vat. All proceeds from the sale of the print will be donated to CALM.
