Draft:Marcus James Gordon

Marcus James Gordon is a mental health advocate, born in 1981 in a town called Melton Mowbray in Leicestershire, which is in the East Midlands of the United Kingdom. He's of mixed ethnicity.

Category:Early years

Marcus James Gordon's early years we marred by early exposure to racism. This racism led to developing mental health issues while in primary school, leaving him with an ongoing issue with suicidal ideation. Ultimately, this very early exposure to racism led to self-destructive behaviours that would go on to trigger psychosis.

Category:Blog

As part of Marcus James Gordon's mental health advocacy work, he created a mental health and invisible disabilities blog by the name of Unwanted Life. The blog went live in January 2019.

Category:Time to Change Champion

Marcus James Gordon became a Time to Change Time to Change Champion in October 2010. Unfortunately, this came to an end when the charity was closed in March 2021. However, it was this time that led to Marcus James Gordon getting involved in a lived experience of psychosis art project.

Category:The Directors

While looking at a few mental health charity websites in the UK looking for volunteer roles and other ways he could give back and help people avoid the life experiences he had, he came across a recruitment ad for a psychosis art project with Artangel and the artist Marcus Coates. The project was a psychosis-lived experience film project.

Working with Artangel and the artist Marcus Coates, Marcus James Gordon created a lived experience short film called The Directors: Marcus. This made up a larger project called The Directors. The process to get there wasn't easy. Over the course of a couple of years, Marcus James Gordon and Marcus Coates, in conjunction with Artangel, translated Marcus James Gordon's lived experience of psychosis into a film that would make sense as a concept.

To help with translating Marcus James Gordon's lived experience of psychosis, he shared content from his blog, Unwanted Life. Thanks to Marcus Coates experiences with doing artistic projects like this, he was able to create ways that would bring Marcus James Gordon's experience of psychosis to life on film.

Unfortunately, this project wasn't spared the impact of COVID-19, which affected filming. Filming was conducted with all the legal COVID-19 guidelines at the time, in the UK. Although this added an extra layer of difficulty, the filming was conducted in a way that was safe for everyone, and the filming went without a hitch over the course of a weekend.

In the film, Marcus Coates plays the central figure, as he did with all the psychosis lived experience films, of which there are five in total. This was so they could add an element of a person who hadn’t experienced psychosis, trying to understand psychosis through the experience with empathy. It also added a layer of protection for the lived experience directors.

At the end of filming, Marcus Coates and Marcus James Gordon were interviewed by Michael Morris, who was Artangel‘s Associate Director and helped make this project what it is. The interviews reflect the experiences of Marcus James Gordon and the weekend filming.

Since completing the film, The Directors exhibit was showcased across several locations in Pimlico between 04 September 2022 - 30 October 2022. One was shown in a bedroom rented in a nearby block of flats, another one in a basement room of a GP surgery, and Marcus James Gordon's was shown in a large room provided by the Churchill Gardens Residents Association.

Category:Legacy

World Mental Health Day
On the 10th October 2023, at King’s College London for World Mental Health Day, there was a screening of The Directors: Marcus film and panel discussion exploring themes of stigma, Marcus James Gordon's lived experience with psychosis, and public attitudes towards psychosis. On that panel were Marcus James Gordon, Marcus Coates, Dr Isabel Valli, and Dr Preety Das. The panel discussion was introduced by Professor Matthew Hotopf CBE and chaired by Professor Sally Marlow.

Royal Free GP Speciality Training Scheme
On the 28th February 2024, Marcus James Gordon and Marcus Coates attended Royal Free GP Speciality Training Scheme to put on an event. The event they put on was made up of an introduction to the art project, followed by information about who Marcus James Gordon and Marcus Coates are. They then showed The Directors: Marcus, followed by a Q&A with the GPs in training. Also part of this event was a role-playing session, so the GPs could get an experience of what it's like to have Marcus James Gordon's lived experience with psychosis.

Training
The Directors have been included in the School of Medical Education 1st year curriculum, King’s College London; included in the online and in-person resources for NHS Psychosis Training for the NHS Foundation Trusts in England; made available in the online training hub for the East London NHS Foundation Trust’s adult social care; featured on the Mental Health Implementation Network blog (including reviews and opinions from clinicians and psychologists); added to staff training at Compass Health Network, Missouri (who provide behavioural health services to young adults ages 13 to 25 experiencing First Episode Psychosis); and been incorporated into a staff workshop for trainee GP’s at Royal Free Hospital, London.

The Psychologist
A short interview between Marcus James Gordon and Professor Sally Marlow for The Psychologist was conducted. The article was called 'Walking in the shoes of psychosis' and was published on 1st March 2024.

Universities
Several universities and hospitals have screened The Directors, held discussions, and added them to their training sessions. These were:


 * University of Washington, SPIRIT Lab.
 * King’s College London.
 * University of Missouri-St. Louis, Missouri Institute of Mental Health.
 * De Montfort University, Leicester.
 * University of Leicester.
 * Royal Free Hospital, London.
 * University of Parma, Italy.

Website
In the wake of the exhibition and the interest that followed in The Directors. films, Artangel created a dedicated website to continue the legacy. There you can request access to all the films and other related material. The website is called 'What's Going On?', which is a phrase taken from Marcus James Gordon's film, The Directors: Marcus