Creative Expression: Exploring Mental Health Through Art
Problem Statement
Create a creative project that looks to explore my mental health in 2022.
My Role
I conceptualized and illustrated the project.
Goals
Develop a healthy medium to explore vulnerability.
Help reduce stigma against talking about mental health.
Construct a running log to look back on as a way to document a year through emotions.
Project Overview
2022, so far has been a year of transformation for me. It has been extremely uncomfortable, but has also been very rewarding. Since I started on my journey to pivot towards a life that feels more authentic to me, I have created a lot, failed a lot and course corrected every time I faced a dead end. However, this journey has not been linear. I am a strong advocate for showing realistic portrayals of mental health online (and offline) to help remove the stigma from seeking help. This has been the case more so now when so many of us have been affected by the impact of the covid-19 pandemic. I started this project in May of 2022 as way to deal with my own vulnerabilities and channel them into a creative endeavor. I decided to create self portraits every month to best depict how I had been feeling that month.
Timeline
May 2022- November 2022
Tool Kit
Procreate
What I Learnt through the project
This project helped me develop a better understanding of my own mental health. It is very fluid and one day doesn’t look like the other, through this project I wanted to take the time to sit with my feelings and use art to help create a space for complete transparency and vulnerability. As we progress through the months, we see moments of self doubt, learning to be patient with myself and even child-like joy and wonder. Through this project, I hope to document my own journey over the course of a year through art and create something that shows life playing out in its wonderfully confusing ways.
PROJECT PIECES
May ‘22
Grappling with self doubt.
June’22
Acceptance and patience.
July‘22
Brimming with Ideas.
August’22
Bloom where you’re planted.
September’22
Thank God for FaceTime!
October ‘22
Learning to live in the in-between.
November ‘22
The inherent value of a human life.