WALKING into Summerhall on a sunny Wednesday afternoon, the place has been transformed.

In honour of mental health awareness month, the annual Out of Sight Out of Mind exhibition has taken over the arts centre, showcasing work from 310 participants each struggling with their own mental health in some way or another and transforming that into art – be those sculptures, paintings, drawings, tapestries, zines, photography, poetry or even films.

The artworks themselves are incredibly inventive, showcasing works from all walks of life, touching upon the theme invisible as well as a plethora of lived experiences.

When you step into the first room, you’re immediately overwhelmed with just how different the pieces are. There are collages representing three universes, a wedding dress stamped with the smears aimed at women, a knitted daily mood journal transformed into a giant scarf, and paintings covering the walls.

I’m drawn to Shadows Cast by Ghosts – sculptures of skeletal bodies with screaming shadows, representing the way disabled people are overlooked as individuals and viewed purely as their disabilities – and interactive piece The Edge Of Awareness by Vikki Spence, where you can flick through a book, twist the mobile covered in insults and compliments and pull out a fan – a fidget toy to represent the artist’s neurodivergence.

Heading downstairs, you come to the films. The first, Soft Play, displays the appeal to people to embrace their inner child, turning the mundane magical and showing the transformative power of the imagination. Meanwhile Jacqueline is a visualiser – trippy lights and colours flash in a Picasso-esque drawing while the background changes rapidly. No sooner than it begins, it’s over. It’s abrupt and chilling.

Continuing down the hallway, you come across Tides_00 by Kris Cirkuit. a remarkably inventive piece, made up of the compressed audio of the Portobello tide turned into computer code. It’s temporality, the idea that you’ll never be in the same place mentally again, along with the rise and fall that extreme emotions often feel like.

The inventiveness continues with Emmanuelle D G Labbé’s Chair Rotting, in which you’re invited to become part of the exhibition by sinking into a chair in front of a depiction of the artist’s depression and anxiety. It’s something I’ve never seen before, and it leaves me a little more mindful – and overwhelmed.

I escape the chair to find Falaichte by Ray Bell, who uses extreme colour manipulation to make his beautiful photographs even more striking. Some stand out like cartoons and others fade to the background but all convey the theme of invisible in relation to Gaelic culture in a unique and fascinating way.

The use of text in some pieces is incredibly poignant and touching, with Maelstrom And Magpies featuring the words “people raised on love see things differently than those raised on survival” fading into the multicoloured swirls of the artwork as though a reminder to the artist to see her life in perspective. Meanwhile, the four-piece abstract beauty Journey Of A Mad Woman has words overlaying the harsh brushstrokes – with God, delusion, nightmare, death, invincible, PTSD giving an insight into the artist’s escape, the way she processes such huge feelings.

There are so many more contributions worth mentioning.

Either Temporality Or My Brain Hates Me by QueerAndBookish explored the issues that executive dysfunction can have on the workflow. As someone who suffers from this, it was comforting to see the artist’s tapestry finished with safety pins and chalk, unable to meet the strict deadline but trying to even so.

De/Reconstructed by Elizabeth Reese dissects previously made collages made in the depths of a drug-fuelled creativity binge into brand new fractured artwork to depict her own fractured mental state.

A book by Lauren Stonebanks gives a deeply personal account of her struggles with her disabilities, her gender and sexuality. You’re invited to engage with the text, flipping through the book and leave comments. It’s intrusive and personal and like many pieces like this, I’m touched they’re allowing us on this journey with her Finally, Fatigue, a poem by Tere Bertucci, discusses the exhaustion of people patting themselves on the back for having minority friends. The poem gets emotive – capital letters like shouting and ending on a question as to whether tokenism is better or worse than the active harm they could be inflicting on the other person.

Though the exhibition seems daunting at first – especially if you have lived experience with mental health problems – it is a deeply moving and personal exploration that helps you remember that even when it feels like you’re the only one struggling with the problems you’re going through, you’re never truly alone.