Visualising Mental Health about to kick off for 2020!
It’s been a while since I provided an update on the Visualising Mental Health (VMH) Initiative, but never fear, we have not abandoned our mission.
After the forum and exhibition from last year, most of us took a well earned break. Other than getting all the 2019 student projects up on the website during the Xmas break, I took a break from blogging.
But now we are ready to kick of 2020, as all the students pile into the University, fresh (hopefully) from their own breaks.
So what does kicking off a new year of VMH actually involve?
- Getting a team of psychologists on board to help students wrap their heads around the mental health topics for 2020 – Massive thanks to Richard, Sarah and Rachel for their repeated involvement. It is a pleasure to work with you guys.
- Decide on the topics for the year – sneak peak – emotions, courtesy, social isolation, mental fitness, empathy and climate change distress. I’ll post the topics in a later post once the students have had a chance to digest them.
- Do a presentation to the 3rd year Communication Design Students, introducing myself, the project, the topics and the psychologists involved. I am all booked in to do this on Tuesday 3rd March. I really hope I remember to take a selfie with all the students in the background this year, although having young people in the background of my photos makes me look older.
- Lock into our diaries the important dates during the year, when the psychologists interact with the students to help them with their projects.
But that is just the preparations at my end. It is a much bigger process for Doreen, Lynda and Lucas – the studio lecturers who have to do all the administrative setup and then get the students settled and support them into the topics. I am endlessly grateful for the amazing work they put into this project and I apologise that I don’t give them enough promotion on here. That is something I need to fix.
And of course, let’s not forget the MatchStudio team whose job it is to make VMH more than just an assignment. Their work to organise the exhibition for later in the year starts now, as does their work to take previous year’s projects and find avenues for further development, commercialisation and research. I’ll keep you up-to-date on here with the developments of two previous year projects that are being co-developed with the help of the SA Mental Health Commission.
Let’s do this!