This year’s theme A Life Re-written, focuses on the life-changing impact of brain injuries, how they can affect anyone at any time, and how brain injuries can throw plans into disarray and even alter people’s sense of identity.
Xavier White is an accomplished outsider artist, who has been inspired by this year’s ABI Week theme. He knows first-hand how life can change in an instant after he was hit by a car while cycling in 1985. Xavier’s injuries were so severe that he had to re-learn to walk and talk.
He explained; “I was 18 years old when I had my near-fatal head injury. I had been planning to go to art college to refine my newly discovered artistic talents. But the brain trauma left me with some very basic life skills and lessons to re-learn. After a 10-day coma, I was moved to the Maudsley Hospital in Camberwell, then neurosurgery rehabilitation ward.”
On May 22, 11 am-12, Xavier is inviting people to join him at Maudsley Hospital for Return to Re-write, a guided tour of his artworks around Maudsley, featuring tales of his brain injury recovery journey and return to the Maudsley’s umbrella of care in 2014.
To book free tickets for the Return to Re-write event visit the Eventbrite link here.
With support from South London & Maudsley NHS Trust Xavier has rewritten his post-brain injury life over the last 10 years. In 2008, Xavier completed an architectural glass degree at Swansea Metropolitan and Xavier returned to Maudsley in 2013 for an autistic spectrum disorder assessment on the advice of a fellow university student.
In 2014 Xavier also worked with Bethlem Gallery to create his homecoming exhibition at the ORTUS Xavier White: Full Circle. Other accolades include London South Bank University Artist in Residence with mental health nursing students 2016 – 2020 and being named Outside In Artist of the Month in Sept 2023.
He now volunteers at the Bethlem Gallery, and works creatively with student nurses around resilience, helping them identify their strengths. As well as being supported by and exhibiting with Outside In, the outsider artist charity.
Xavier will also be holding a now fully booked brain injury talk and workshop at Bethlem Gallery on Friday, May 24.
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