Events
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23rd May - 2nd June 2013
Profile authors at Hay Festival 2013 -
23nd May - 2nd June 2013
Polly Morland, Renata Salecl at How The Light Gets In philosophy festival -
26th May 2013
Alex Danchev on Cézanne at the Charleston Festival -
26th May 2013
Simon Garfield presents On the Map at Brighton Festival 2013 -
Thursday 20th June
Tony Juniper at Bristol Festival of Ideas -
2nd June 2013
Simon Garfield at London Literature Festival 13 -
Sunday 16th June
Sam Leith at Borders Book Festival -
Thursday 13th June, 2013
Renata Salecl at TEDGlobal 2013 -
Wednesday 12th June
Bernie Krause TEDGlobal talk -
Monday 13th June
Jonathan Dimbleby at the National Army Museum -
Sunday 23 June
Andrew Martin on Travel Around London at Kings Place -
Sunday 23 June
Simon Garfield at Proms at St Jude’s -
Sunday 23rd June
Simon Garfield & Chris Schüler: Mapping the World -
Monday 24 June
Not a Day for Soundbites: The Craft of the Political Speech -
30th June 2013
Polly Morland at Chalke Valley History Festival 2013 -
Tuesday 2nd July
David Hendy at Bristol Festival of Ideas -
Thursday 4th July
Victoria Glendinning at Beaminster Festival
Bobby Baker wins the MIND Book of the Year 2011
13 September 2011
Mental health charity Mind presented renowned performance artist Bobby Baker with its prestigious Book of the Year Award for her outstanding Diary Drawings: Mental Illness and Me on Monday 12 September. The work, which is a collection of drawings created over a decade of her life, is a poignant visual documentary of Bobby’s experiences of mental, and later physical, ill-health as well as her eventual recovery.
Diary Drawings is a collection of 158 drawings from a total of 711 which Bobby produced between 1997 and 2008, and the first book of its kind to win the award in its 30 year history. The combination of drawings and writing provides a graphic, often darkly comic insight into the life of an artist grappling with huge internal upheavals. As well as an introductory essay by author Marina Warner, Diary Drawings also includes essays both by Bobby and by her daughter Dora Whittuck, a clinical psychologist.
Originally intended to be private, these 158 diary drawings were first shown in a hugely popular exhibition at the Wellcome Collection in London in 2009, which was attended by 53,000 visitors in 4 months.
Mind Book of the Year judges, Fay Weldon, Blake Morrison and Michèle Roberts chose Diary Drawings from over 100 entries as this year’s greatest literary contribution to increasing understanding of mental health issues.
Judge Fay Weldon said of Diary Drawings: Mental Illness and Me:
“This is the first graphic autobiography we’ve ever had in Mind’s Book of the Year – and it was very graphic! She’s such an energetic and lively person and this just shows through in her honest view of herself and people around her. You can’t help but respond to it. I think there’s a sea change with this year’s entries into a kind of acceptance about the possibilities and the future people with mental health problems can have.”
On winning Bobby Baker said:
“I’ve scarcely ever won anything in my life! I can’t imagine anything I’d be more proud to win in my whole life than the Mind Book of the Year Award. I’m beyond pleased and it means an awful lot to people like me who’ve had experience of mental illness and for my family too.”
The annual Mind Book of the Year Award, now in its 30th year, celebrates outstanding works of fact or fiction that heighten understanding of mental health issues.
