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Healing Spaghetti was a participatory performance art piece we created for World Mental Health Day.

Healing can feel like throwing spaghetti at a wall: trying different things without knowing what will stick, for how long, or whether it will still work tomorrow.

We wanted to make that experience visible, and invite others to throw some spaghetti with us.

Thank you to everyone who joined us. The digital wall label in my bio has more about the project and the artists.

Team Healing Spaghetti
Performing Artists: @thejunkbrew @kinaink @godbroccoliart @juliabymes
Filmmaker: @marsoliloquy
Gallery: @highhorsegalerieetateliers

#HealingSpaghetti #PerformanceArt #WorldMentalHealthDay #OttawaArtists #KeepTryingSeeWhatSticks

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Artist Feature 16: The Mother Shelf by Julia by mes @juliabymes

We continue our series highlighting artists from the Unsilenced Stories: Art as Witness in Health Research digital archive.

The Mother Shelf draws from Julia by mes’ lived experience of dissociative identity disorder and explores how child parts can experience the past within the present. Using vivid colour, interconnected figures, and a visual language the artist describes as post-traumatic pop art, the work gives form to experiences of fragmentation, multiplicity, memory, and survival.

Julia by mes approaches these experiences from within rather than through clinical observation. Flowing lines, connected bodies, and layered imagery become a language for internal dialogue and the often invisible structures that hold a fragmented self together. Through this perspective, the work challenges ways that dissociation can be reduced to diagnosis, symptoms, or case studies.

At the centre of the artist’s practice is a reclamation of authority over the patient narrative. The Mother Shelf asks viewers to encounter plurality and trauma through embodied knowledge, while making space for complexity, adaptation, resilience, and recognition.

The Unsilenced Stories archive is a growing, juried, open-access platform featuring artists across Canada whose work critically engages with health, illness, and care as forms of embodied knowledge grounded in lived experience.

🔗 View the full work and artist page via the link in our bio.

#UnsilencedStories #HealthHumanities #ArtAsKnowledge #ContemporaryArt #CanadianArt #DisabilityArts #Embodiment #ArtistFeature #ResearchCreation #CAHH #HealthArts #Juliabymes #HealthArtsArchive A vertically oriented stylized illustration with a gold-patterned picture frame shows an interconnected orange human figure and a serpent against a warm yellow background. A large dark green snake with triangular markings emerges from the person’s mouth, and together they form a shelf-like structure, the mother shelf. Purple, striped worms spill out of several cans stored within this shelf shape. Three of the four cans are labeled with simple illustrations: a dollar bill, an apple, and a red cross. In the lower right corner, a simplified blue child figure stands holding a water pistol in one hand and a magnifying glass in the other.

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SO RELEVANT I’M DISAPPEARING ARTIST LINEUP — @gallery.1065 AUG 28-30 — PROCEEDS TO @sisteringdropin

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THANK YOU to everyone that joined us in our Knots and thoughts embroidery workshop. We had a blast! 💥
Turn on our notifications so you don’t miss the next one!

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Art, Memory, and the Generations Before Us Featuring @juliabymes

Some people find art. Others are found by it.
Julia Mes had never made art in her life — until about a year and a half ago, when a stone-dotting workshop and a YouTube rabbit hole into neurographic art opened something she didn’t expect. Parts of her system turned out to be artists. Others are still not so sure. And one part has been loudly, clearly stating for months: “I am not an artist.”No further information.

In this conversation, we explore what it looks like when creativity becomes a language between parts, how system mapping evolved from a spreadsheet to a 42-page Google Doc to a park in a shoebox to hand-painted stones. We also move into something rarely discussed: intergenerational trauma, the concept of the “Grandchildren of War,” and what it means to carry images that may belong to another generation entirely.

This one is quiet, honest, and really beautiful.

Inside this conversation:
When parts disagree about who you are
System mapping as an evolving, tactile, annual practice
Neurographic art as an unexpected tool for internal communication
Late discovery, menopause, and the energy that was keeping things submerged
Growing up in Germany as a grandchild of the Second World War
Holding images that feel like memory — but may not be yours
What the messy, funny, and sometimes devastating day-to-day looks like

If you’ve ever struggled to put your internal experience into words — Julia has an invitation: grab a piece of paper and a Sharpie, write “there is no way to do this wrong,” and see what happens.

🎧 Tune in wherever you listen to your favorite podcasts!
💜🫶🩷

#did #OSDD #cptsd #intergenerationaltrauma #dissociativeidentitydisorder

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We're proud to share the Shared Experiences and Adaptations Art Showcase for Spring 2026! We are honoured to have these artists share their artwork and creations with us and to be able to share them with all of you as well! Flip through to see some amazing works of art along with descriptions from the artists themselves.
This showcase is shared by Julia by mes, Sarah Moquin, Jessica Compton, and two anonymous artists,
Trigger warning for depictions of CSA and Abuse. We inform you of trigger warnings as a means of ensuring consent and agency for the viewer, while also making room for survivors to share their experiences. Sharing experiences helps others know they are not alone. It is the responsibility of the viewer to determine if they are in the right space to witness these artists' renditions. Please view with care.
All of the art presented belongs to the original artists. If you are interested in their work, please use their contact information in to reach out to them. In the case of anonymous submissions, DM us and we can ask them if they are interested in further inquiry. Please do not use any of the art shown here without explicit permission from the artists.
The Shared Experiences and Adaptations Showcase is an initiative led by D.E.A.P. Support Niagara - a survivor-led, peer-support initiative based in the Niagara Region. Dissociative Experiences and Adaptations Peer Support began this showcase as a method of highlighting the lived experiences of trauma and dissociation. Our next showcase will be released in mid-September to early October. Submissions open in September, 2026. If you're an artist with lived experience of trauma and dissociation and use art as a means of healing, we'd love to hear from you!

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Quick update about the auction.

I made a mistake with the start and end times when setting it up. Once I realized what had happened, I took some time to think it through, and reopening the auction at that point did not feel fair.

I want to extend a heartfelt thank you to @juliabymes for her generosity, patience, and willingness to collaborate. If you missed the chance to bid, I truly encourage you to go follow her and support her work directly.

Thank you, also, to all who shared the auction!!

There will be more opportunities to support the respite center ahead. Thank you so much for your understanding, your kindness, and for walking alongside this project as it grows.

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Auction ends tomorrow!

Just a quick reminder that the silent auction to benefit Safe Harbor closes December 16 at midnight (UTC). If you’ve been meaning to bid or browse, now’s the time.

Thank you so much to everyone who’s participated, shared, or supported — it genuinely means a lot.

Find the auction link at the link in my bio.

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The silent auction for Safe Harbor is officially open.

From now through December 16 at midnight, you can bid on a donated piece of original art that carries a story many of us know all too well. Every dollar raised goes directly toward launching Safe Harbor Peer Respite Center in rural Michigan.

This is the first time I’ve ever done an auction like this, and it means a lot that our community is helping bring this project to life. Safe Harbor will be a calm, steady residential space for people navigating dissociation and trauma, something our state has never had before.

If you want to take part or simply donate to the cause, it's the first button in my LinkTree (in bio)!!!

Thank you for helping this vision move one step closer to reality.

HOW TO BID:

1) Follow the link from here or my website to the **AUCTION** for Safe Harbor (you may have to click a tab at the top of the page to toggle between fundraiser and auction!!)

2) Create a GiveButter account

3) Bid on the art, or donate! Bidding is in $20 increments. Winner will be declared at auction end, and a payment request will be sent. Once payment is received, I will ship your drawing!

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This collaboration is deeply personal for both of us. Art has been a way to give voice to lived experience, the parts shaped by dissociation, trauma, and healing that can be hard to put into words. And Safe Harbor was born from that same truth: that real care begins when people are met with understanding, not explanation.

Safe Harbor is a peer-led respite center being created by and for people with dissociative experiences, a healing space for rest, grounding, community, and trauma-informed support rooted in lived experience rather than clinical distance.

When our paths crossed, the alignment was immediate: Both of our missions center dignity. Both believe in connection over isolation. Both love the power of creating spaces, artistic or physical, where people get to be seen as they truly are.

The drawing “I Thought You Were My Friend” was created out of grief, healing, and lived truth. Donating it to support Safe Harbor allowed that deeply personal work to become something bigger, part of building future spaces where survivors can feel less alone and more held in community.

This reel is a small reflection of that shared vision. If this resonates with you, we invite you to witness this work, share the vision, or support however feels right to you.

Every sharing voice matters.
Every act of community matters.
Every step toward peer-led care matters.

#DIDCommunity #PeerRespite #TraumaInformedArt #MentalHealthAdvocacy #LivedExperienceMatters #ArtForHealing #DissociativeIdentities #CommunityCare #HealingThroughArt #PeerSupportWorks #ArtistReels #MentalHealthAwareness #DID #OSDD #PostTraumaticPopArt

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Guess what came in the mail?? 🥰🥰🥰

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