Spit it Out
Spit it Out is a community & lived-experience led organisation, founded to centre marginalised voices and advocate for a more equitable and trauma-informed cultural landscape that allows for personal and structural transformation. We value constant collective learning and push for open conversations around mental health and healing through creativity, accountability and community care
We collaborate with our members and partners in delivering accessible and inclusive creative activities and resources in Edinburgh, Glasgow and Online, using different art forms to educate and empower our community. It allows marginalised people who are often isolated and experiencing mental ill health to find a sense of belonging thanks to art and creativity. We are committed to reducing barriers for under-represented groups by developing inclusive, creative projects that bring together people from different backgrounds to tell their stories, challenge societal views and find a community of peers.
The Team
Lea Luiz De Oliveira
Co-Director
Lea (she/her) is an French-Brazilian filmmaker based in Scotland. Her work tackles mental health and gender violence. She has produced and directed films in Brazil, Turkey, Scandinavia, Europe and Korea. In 2019, her documentary, “Spit It Out”, was commissioned by BBC and talks about recovery from sexual trauma through the power of spoken word. Following the success of the film, she co-founded the award-winning organisation “Spit it Out” dedicated to opening conversations around consent, mental health and healing through creativity. Her film “A la folie” about the situation of carers in France won the Care Award at the 2022 Scottish Mental Health Art Festival. She is currently in post-production for her latest film “What it means to be”. This year, she was featured in YWCA 30 under 30’.
Click photo to see more of her work
lea.luizdeoliveira@gmail.com
Bee Asha Singh
Co-Director
Bee Asha (She/Her) is a Scottish Punjabi rapper and spoken word artist living in Edinburgh. Between Rap and Poetry her work is a cathartic outlet that she uses to explore themes of sexuality, trauma and gender equality, characterised by an openness to talk about her lived experiences. She is one third of the hip hop trio The Honey Farm, a Scottish female rap group who promote female confidence and egalitarian views. In 2019 Asha starred in the BBC Documentary, Spit it Out. This year she has co-founded award winning charity, The Spit it Out Project, released her first album ‘From Girl to Men’, won the SAMA’s best newcomer and was featured in YWCA 30 under 30’s.
Click photo to see more of her work
beeashasingh@gmail.com
Jessie Lindsay
Aye Thrive Lead / Festival Producer
Jessie (she/they) is an ambitious environmental student who advocates for equal opportunities and self-expression. Her role within Spit it Out has led her to gain valuable experience as Programmer for the (SiO) Aye Thrive Project and Project Manager for The Spit it Out Festival 2023/24. Within the last year, Jessie has focussed her attention to community arts with involvement in the LeithLate Festival 2022/23, Co-directing the Picturing Leith Mural Project 2023, as a Science Communicator for Edinburgh Science Festival 2023, and most recently joining the Arts Industry team at Edinburgh Fringe Society. She is interested in the intersectionality of the arts, mental health and the environment and is exploring how to combine all three.
Nisan Yetkin
Artistic Manager
Nisan (she/her) is a self-taught artist from Turkey. After completing her BA in history at the University of York, she returned to Istanbul as a freelance artist. With a passion for comic books, animated films, and graphic novels, she started researching alternative ways of tackling history, politics, and social issues through her work. She co-directed and animated the documentary “I don’t want to call it home”. She is the artist behind the animations in the documentary, “Spit It Out” and has since been working on various projects involving animation and illustration.
Click photo to see more of her work
nisanyetkin@gmail.com
Megan Singh
Aye Breathe - Project Lead
Megan (she/her) is an active person and an outdoor enthusiast, who loves to encourage people to explore and experience the beauty of nature. She has worked as a forest and nursery practitioner for 5 years. While continuing this practice, Megan has also decided to learn and discover more about her creative side, such as woodwork and electrical engineering, to encourage and empower others in developing practical life skills.
Eva Lopez-Lopez
Aye Right - Project Lead
Eva (she/they) is a writer and an outspoken LGBTQ+ rights advocate from Spain. She has collaborated with museums and festivals with her social media and website skills (Glasgow International Visual Arts Festival and Hunterian Museum with the Curating Discomfort intervention). Due to a love of storytey and the power of art to bring focus to relevant issues, Eva has a great passion for DIY (Do-It-Yourself) culture, volunteering as an editor in PITH zine and No Permission Needed Zine. They have recently graduated in Sociology with Quantitative Methods at the University of Glasgow.
Reema Vadoliya
Data Consultant
Reema (She/They) is a passionate business founder, gifted storyteller and tireless advocate for inclusion in data. By challenging audiences to reshape their perception of data as a dreary necessity, she draws out the real human stories which organically empower intentional inclusion in data and beyond. After seven years and multiple roles in data, Reema decided to launch her new, trailblazing company, People of Data. Through this organisation she seeks to create a world in which data can be used as a springboard for understanding the real people that data represents.
An experienced speaker not afraid of digging into the gristle of the difficult topics, Reema’s talks push beyond a 1D (one demographic) view of data and offer a refreshing, multi-dimensional consideration of how humanised data can pioneer a brighter future.
Click on photo to see more of her work
Annabel Moodie
Filmmaker - Filmmaker/Editor
Annabel (She/Her) is an Edinburgh based film and moving image maker with a love of analog and DIY processes and the magic of the natural world. She has an MA in ethnographic and documentary filmmaking. She has worked as a freelance researcher, editor and videographer for creatives and art events. She is currently part of the Bridging the Gap 2023 scheme by the Scottish Documentary Institute.
Click on photo to see more of her work
Aude
Aye Connect - Lead
Aude (she/they) is a theatre practitioner, workshop facilitator and writer focusing their practice in theatre that champions meaningful storytelling, LGBTQ+ rights and ensemble work.
They have worked with Sanctuary Queer Arts performing in 'Threads' in 2020 and assisting in delivering creative workshops at the National Museum of Scotland for young people. Their poetic writing focuses on queerness and mental health (featuring in "writing Our Space, An LGBTQ+ Anthology" published by Arkbound foundation).
Currently, she is a freelance facilitator for Class Act at the Traverse Theatre and a co-producer for 'Inertia' by Trudy Kalvynaite with ophelia hare arts.
Hamish Gibson
Graphic Designer
Hamish (he/him) is a Scottish designer and journalist based in London, driven by a love for photography, visual communication, and coffee. His current MA research is looking into the connections surrounding modern nonfiction storytelling, conflict reporting, digital technology, and the human condition.
Click on photo to see more of his work
Antoinette Frost
A passionate advocate for the arts and community formation, fueled by a curious social nature and ability to connect with people from all walks of life. Expression and connection are important to me and I believe understanding and encouraging our strengths and differences help us create authentic value internally and in our world.
Linda Kima Zake
Linda Kima Zake is an artist based in Edinburgh who uses photography and film. Through her work she creates alternative stories to those usually told through images of nude bodies and sex. Her images are a way of liberating her subjects, offering them a new route to body acceptance by making something beautiful and sensual but also raw and erotic – and most importantly, real. In her own words, Kima ‘seeks to explore the positivity and freedom of Scotland’s contemporary kinky and queer community’.
Last year her film Sense Me premiered at Mezipatra in Prague, which is the longest running queer film festival.
The Board
Serena Steptoe
Serena (she/her) is a researcher, mental health charity worker and aspiring Clinical Psychologist. She is passionate in her work, facilitating early mental health interventions for young people. Her interests are also in how psychosocial mechanisms relate to mental health
Catherine Middleton Findlay
Chair
Catherine Middleton Findlay, MA Screen Arts, BA Hons Performance Management. Catherine has over 20 years’ experience as an arts project manager. With a strong track record as creative producer, programmer and arts manager, with specialism in participatory arts in the fields of arts and healthcare. Uniquely skilled to facilitate vision and strategy development and success- fully implement subsequent programmes. Catherine has extensive experience of organising and delivering arts programmes in the context of: mental health and wellbeing, community participation, health and social care settings, creative ageing inclusive of supporting people living with dementia, adult education, and with marginalised young people who have complex needs in education and health settings
Hazel Peters
Secretary
Hazel Peters (she/her) is a journalist, poet and founder of No Permission Needed, a magazine for Black and People of Colour in Scotland. Hazel’s journalism journey began in 2021, after she won Scottish BBC Young Reporter and produced a piece about the Black experience in Scottish schools. Hazel's work sits at the intersection of art, culture, race and gender and often is a reflection of the spaces she occupies as a Guyanese-Scottish young woman.
Moh Al-Haifi
Originally from Yemen, Moh is a strong advocate of using business as a force of good. He is a social entrepreneur and an ethical growth hacking consultant and coach. Having over 7 years of experience in various fast growing startups, marketing agencies and most recently a corporate venture builder, Moh combines his knowledge and expertise in digital marketing & social entrepreneurship to empower others. He supports conscious entrepreneurs to scale their social impact through ethical growth marketing strategy, coaching and training. Linked in
Profile - https://www.linkedin.com/in/mohalhaifi
Instagram -https://www.instagram.com/moh.alhaifi/?hl=en
Moh's Business - https://zebragrowth.com/
Ravideep Kaur
Dr. Ravideep Kaur is a coach and consultant specialising in anti-oppression, pro-liberation, somatics and decolonisation based in Dundee, Scotland. Her passion for this work stems from her having the awareness and capacity to see things through multiple lenses at the same time.
Ruth Eliot
Ruth (she/her) is a trainer and workshop facilitator in pleasure-centred, trauma-informed and inclusive relationships and sex education (RSE) and sexual /gender-based violence prevention (GSBV). She provides workshops, training & consultancy on a range of topics within the fields of RSE, GBSV and Equality, Diversity & Inclusion. Ruth’s previous roles include Head of Training & Sexual Violence Prevention Specialist at the national, award-winning RSE provider The School of Sexuality Education, GBV-prevention worker at Women and Girls' Network and Training Lead at a Rape Crisis Centre. She is a founder of Training Works, dedicated to sustainable & inclusive RSE/ GBSV and a trainee sexologist at the Contemporary Institute of Clinical Sexology.