Blue Messiah Book launch
Twenty years ago, Peter Finlay spent time at Lake Alice, the psychiatric institution. Shortly after leaving, he wrote the story of his hospitalization and his re-entry to civilian life. There’s a police beating, medication haze, nefarious inpatient characters, strange thought-processes, and through it all, the calm voice of the writer, fully oriented to time, place and self, who explains what it was like in 1987 to come undone and get put in one of New Zealand’s most infamous psychiatric hospitals.
The Frozen Funds Trust is supporting the publication of Peter Finlay’s Blue Messiah. The Trust was established to distribute grants from a fund originating from the interest on patients’ savings whilst in psychiatric hospitals over many years. After returning money to everyone they could find, five million dollars was left. In 2008, its inaugural year, the Trust called for projects from the mental health community that would educate the public about “the legacy of institutionalization”.
In recent years, Peter Finlay has regularly attended the creative writing class at Toi Ora Live Art Trust and is now enrolled in English and writing classes at Auckland University. Toi Ora is an art centre for painters, printers, musicians, writers, and craftspeople in Grey Lynn, Auckland. It provides a space for people who use mental health services to make their art. Peter and Toi Ora approached Frozen Funds, and the result is this compelling publication.
Erwin van Asbeck
Manager
Toi Ora Live Art Trust
6 Putiki St. Grey Lynn. Auckland
09 3604171
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Member Profile
Toi Ora Live Art TrustToi Ora Live Art Charitable Trust was established in 1995, through the impetus of Mary O’Hagan and Sara McCookweir and a core group of mental health consumers, to provide creative learning opportunities and space for people living with mental illness. Membership grows constantly, with presently over 600 people registered and on average 130 enrolling and per school term.
Toi Ora Live Art Trust is a community health/arts centre.Our vision statement, “Inspiring Wellbeing through Creativity” is central to our practice of support and tuition in the arts. We achieve art, health, and education outcomes. Community support and involvement is essential to reduce the personal and social barriers people face as a result of experiencing mental ill health.
Toi Ora objectives:
Creative arts centre for people with experience of mental ill heath.
Professional tutors: Full range of art practice. Studio materials free.
Unique Consumer Driven service established in 1995.
Artists derive income from art sales and gain community recognition.
Actively promoting so called Outsider Art.
Venue for community arts participation, arts practice and dialogue.
Destigmatisation, integration, peer support and advocacy.
Providing a key component to peoples recovery and long term well being.Ethnicities attending Toi Ora currently are 20% Maori, 11% Pacific peoples, 4% Asian/Indian, and 65% Caucasian.
