2025
Welcome to Out of Sight Out of Mind exhibition 2025:
1 Oct – 9 Nov, Wed to Sun, 11am - 6pm, Summerhall, Edinburgh. Free.
Back for its 13th year, and this time bigger than ever, Out of Sight Out of Mind presents artworks by 395 people with mental health issues and occupies almost all of Summerhall’s galleries. Each artwork is someone’s voice: personal, political, playful, raw, joyful — and everything in between. Together, they form a powerful chorus. Some exhibitors have taken inspiration from the Scottish Mental Health Arts Festival theme of comfort and disturb. Inspired by a famous Cesar A Cruz quote about art as activism, the idea that “art should comfort the disturbed and disturb the comfortable”.
Like many projects in Edinburgh, this year Out of Sight Out of Mind lost its continued funding, and we wish the community to know that we will seek alternative sources with the aim that it continues.
Whether this is your first or thirteenth year as a visitor or an exhibitor, we welcome you to witness, reflect, celebrate, and stand with those affected by mental health issues, and each other.
About: As always, Out of Sight Out of Mind is organised by a collective of people with mental health issues, supported by CAPS Independent Advocacy and is part of the Scottish Mental Health Arts Festival. It happens with the involvement and support of numerous organisations in the community and with the help of many volunteers.
The year that: 91 canvases were submitted to a ‘Comfort & Disturb Canvas Installation’; an area was created where visitors could sit and talk, and take time to answer: ‘What does it mean to you?’; there was an Audio Described tour for people with visual impairment in collaboration with See with Me from the Fruitmarket Gallery and OOSOOM Uncovered event had around 120 guests, and we gave away 1000 Out of Sight Out of Mind stickers!
In numbers: 394 exhibitors. 38 artwork materials grants, supporting 148 exhibitors. 19 participating organisations. 12 regular Planning Group members. 26 additional exhibition volunteers. Final tally of exhibition visitors over 16 days was 2647, the highest yet!
Explore below: Launch photos, gallery room photos, see and download the 2025 poster, read what it meant to exhibitors and visitors.
Launch Photos
Gallery Rooms
[IMAGE DESCRIPTION: The OOSOOM 2025 poster, with the OOSOOM logo in pink centred over an abstract painting with a brown background and yellow, green brush strokes encircling pink and red brush strokes, with ‘Comfort and disturb’ handwritten in orange pen over the top. Below is written; ‘An exhibition of art made by with people experiences of mental health issues. 22 October - 8 November 2025, Wednesday - Sunday, 11am - 6pm, Summerhall, Free. The exhibition presents a wide variety of themes, some may be affecting, thought provoking, everyday and/or awesome. Followed by supporting organisation logos in black, including; Caps Independent Advocacy, iThrive Edinburgh, People’s Postcode Lottery Trust, Edinburgh Health and Social Care Partnership, Mental Health Foundation and Scottish Mental Health Arts Festival.]
2025 Poster
Since 2013 all of the OOSOOM posters have been designed by Michael Dawson in close collaboration with the Planning Group.
This year’s design takes inspiration from this years’ Scottish Mental Health Arts Festival theme ‘Comfort and Disturb’. Referencing a famous Cesar A Cruz quote about art as activism, the idea that
“art should comfort the disturbed and disturb the comfortable”.
It is a simple expression of the power of art both to challenge and to console, often having a transformative effect on people and societies.
It was with this sentiment that the poster was created.
The encircling shapes, disturbing and contained or embraced and consoled?
The colourful logo and text bringing joyful comfort, or disturbingly unofficial?
The scrappy handwritten note a comforting reminder or disturbing defacement?
What does the exhibition mean to you? 2025
Each year we ask; if you are a visitor to the exhibition, an exhibitor, a friend or relative of one, a project partner or anyone else at all, ‘What does it mean to you?’