NEW for 2017 is MouthPieces - a new strand of the Ageas Salisbury International Arts Festival looking at mental health.

Artist Viv Gordon has curated the MouthPieces programme.

It is the first time the festival has featured a strand exploring mental health.

“We wanted it to be about giving a voice to those with different experiences. We spent a lot of time thinking about it and that it was important to have work by artists with mental health needs not about mental health,” explains Viv.

A lot of work is produced by artists with lived experience of mental health. The programme spans across mediums from dance, theatre to film and talks.

Artist Aidan Moesby’s interactive Periodic Table of Emotions will take the emotional temperature of the festival’s audience in real time.

A film double bill, Lives on the Edge, presents personal accounts of those affected by mental health.

Tarnation is a journey into the troubled minds of filmmaker Jonathan Caouette and his mother who lives with schizophrenia. Completing the double bill is The Alcohol Years by Carol Morely.

Alistair Campbell talks frankly about his time at Number 10, the current state of politics and his campaign for better understanding of mental health.

There is an afternoon of conversation and performance exploring arts and mental health as part of Mouthing Off featuring extracts of work-in-progress by emerging artists Emma Louvelle and Richard Crowe, and a full performance of Viki Browne’s HELP!

Viv Gordon brings her autobiographical one-woman show, I Am Joan, to the festival stage, which is about a woman’s recovery and finding empowerment by connecting with various inspiring Joans, including Joan Collins, Joan Jett and Joan of Arc.

Also featuring in the programme is Wanna Dance With Somebody! by Running Dog Theatre, a show exploring social anxiety. It is part physics lecture and part school disco.