Music and mental health festival to create mural of late Prodigy singer Keith Flint in Hackney

Organisers of the UK’s biggest music and wellbeing festival have laid out plans for a Hackney mural featuring the late Prodigy singer Keith Flint – as they try to raise awareness of the importance of mental health.

Headstock, which started in 2010 in the north-west of England, plans to complete the mural on Beechwood Road in Dalston on 10 September to coincide with this year’s World Suicide Prevention Day.

It is hoped that the mural of Flint, who committed suicide in 2019, will be a stark but touching reminder of the importance of tackling mental health issues and looking out for our own and others’ wellbeing.

The festival’s founder Atheer Al-Salim said: “We want to use music as a vehicle to try and raise awareness for mental health issues and also to raise money for various mental health charities. Music and the arts in general are a fantastic way for people to alleviate mental health issues.

“The pandemic has affected everyone massively, on a whole number of different levels,” he continued. “Having [music] taken away has had a massive impact on a lot of people.”

The group was due to host a music festival in Manchester in May of last year, but the week-long event was ultimately moved online due to the first coronavirus lockdown.

This is the second mural that Headstock has created, both in partnership with Manchester-based street artist Akse P19, who is known for political portraiture including a famous mural of Marcus Rashford.

The first mural pays homage to Joy Division’s Ian Curtis, and was painted last year in Manchester’s Northern Quarter to mark the 40th anniversary of his death.

Al-Salim explained: “We wanted to continue the theme of remembering artists who have lost their lives, but also wanted to use it as an opportunity to raise awareness.”

The unveiling of the second memorial falls just a week before what would have been Flint’s 52nd birthday.

The choice of Beechwood Road is deliberate, being just a stone’s throw from where The Prodigy played their first gig at the Four Aces Club in 1990.

This work in particular aims to shine a spotlight on mental health charity and text support service Shout 85258. 

The artwork will feature both the charity’s logo and a number that visitors can use to contact the support service.

In order to raise money for the mural and for mental health charities, the group has launched a crowdfunder, which you can find here