Sofia Nolasco
ART 263- Acts of Resistance:
Activists, Interlopers, and Pranksters
Professor Cacoilo
April 22nd, 2020
Final Project Proposal:
Mental Health Awareness (Depression & Drug/Medication
Use)
One
part of my project is more of an abstract/performance piece. I wrote a poem
describing my view of mental illness and how a simple household object as a
Plastic Hair Clip can be seen in the same light as a Plastic Pill Bottle of
medicine. In the poem, I describe the correlation between how the action of the
clip grabbing hair and holding it up is similar to the way that pills keep
mentally ill people sane or more so gives them the illusion they are fine. In
the poem, I write about a girl who is struggling with being so dependent on her
Hair Clip to keep holding her hair up all the time and that she has conflicted feelings
every time she has to run to get the clip to pin her hair up out of her way.
This can be seen as a way to view how some mentally ill people feel as if they
need medication to survive and that there is no way out so they end up having
conflicted feelings and sometimes the medication gives them distorted thoughts
and emotions of how they should “really” feel. I go on in the poem to describe that
despite the girl using her Hair Clip, it doesn’t really help the feelings go
away nor does it fully “cure” her giving her a false sense of hope that life
will ever get better. In the middle of this poem, the girl realizes she wants to
stop the false emotions and feelings she is going through having to rely so much on her Hair Clip(s) so she decides to get the courage to take them out and
let her hair flow symbolizing how a person can overcome medication/drug use by
letting go and taking the right step in the direction where they can decide what
they want to do with their bodies both physically and mentally. The end of the
poem sums up how the girl's Hair Clips are an item of her past, not saying that
she will ever forget them they will always be apart of her but that she doesn’t
need them anymore to live a free life not chained down or reliant on medication
to be happy.
The second part of my project is a simple Social Media Ad I made bringing awareness
to Mental Illness and call to action that there is a huge issue going on
where psychiatric drugs are being abused, used to oppress those who are ill and
that there are other treatment options besides pills and medication. I
mentioned Mind freedom’s website in the ad being as I thought it had the best
resources and knowledge to share with the public over social media.
I
picked these forms of outreach because I think that they are successful in
getting the word out especially in a time like these where we can’t have any
social contact. One major part of mental illness and the treatment of it is
telling stories and going to therapies whether those be in a group or with a
therapist. With the COVID 19 Pandemic, it is harder for people to have those
outlets and resources to access and even medication is coming to a slow down
because of the availability. These times have been anxiety-inducing and causing
an increase in mental illness but luckily more people have been turning to more
natural and better ways of treatment that don’t include medication use.
My
message to the audience is I want them to take action. I want them to share
that this is truly a problem in our society that we aren’t paying enough
attention to and it needs to be a topic that more of us talk about and end the
stigma against it. Wheatear that means sharing your story or making sure
someone knows of the resources they can reach to find out more info I hope my project can encourage people to do that for themselves and for others. I plan
on publishing my Social Media Ad by posting it on our class blog (I’ll also
include a google drive link to a JPG, PNG and PDF Versions of the AD) and encouraging
that everyone in our class, save it, share it and put it on any social media
outlets they have.
This
project is still ongoing being as once the COVID Pandemic is over I will try my
best to print bigger sized Ads/posters to post around the university and give
out to people by hand. For my poem, I will make an audio recording of me
reading/performing the poem as well as posting its written version on the blog.
With this, I hope people can relate to the poem, find the connections they can
make with it and even sharing it with someone who enjoys this other form of
artwork that is more abstract and performance-related.
This the project will help to not only show off my graphic design skills and see exactly
how successful I can be in designing a social media post/Awareness ad that will
literally, call people to action but also designing an appealing graphic that
people will also want to share online with others. This project will also be
able to showcase my skills but also show off my passion for mental illness and
how I really want to contribute and show others that through art you can also
send important messages.
Mad
Pride: is a mass movement of the users of mental health services,
former users, who advocate for individuals with mental illness that should be
proud of their 'mad' identity. Mad pride has several organized connected groups
in at least seven countries some being Australia, South Africa and the United States of America. This movement's objective can be taken in many ways. Some
members advocate for some aspects while others advocate for different reasons.
“Members of the mad pride movement do not always agree on their aims and
intentions. For some, the objective is to continue the destigmatization of
mental illness. A vocal, controversial wing rejects the need to treat mental
afflictions with psychotropic drugs and seeks alternatives to the shifting,
often inconsistent care offered by the medical establishment. Many members of
the movement say they are publicly discussing their own struggles to help those
with similar conditions and to inform the general public.” All these reasons
are important but what’s even more impressive is that everyone has a place and
a movement where they can voice their opinions and come together at the end of
the day to advocate for something they are really passionate about.
Yungblud:
Dominic Richard Harrison, known professionally as Yungblud, is an English
singer, songwriter, and actor. In his debut album, 21st Century Liability, he
addresses important social issues within the new upcoming generation of
teenagers. Specifically, in his song “Medication” he addresses the growing
issue of doctors feeding people medication just for the sake of giving them
false hope and a false cure by telling them just to take this medication it will
fix everything. In the chorus of his song he uses repetition to enforce this
idea, “I just wanna
take my, I just wanna take my (My, my, my) My medication!”
In this line specifically, it reinforces the idea that people get so hooked onto
these medications that they start to become so dependent on them and all they
know is to take their medication but have no consciousness fo what it's actually
doing to them. There are many songs where this artist references mental illness
and how important individualism is at a young age and that we should be living
our lives free to be what we want, dress how we want and not be judged by our
patriarchal society. Songs such as Original me, Hope for the underrated youth
and Parents are a few honorable mentions that also address generational issues
in our society.
Satvik
Sethi: Is a sophomore at SUNY Binghamton and is an
international student from India whose work has been noticed by the media.
Sethi designed an app called “Runaway,” where people who are suffering from
mental illness can find support within the community/with each other. Sethi
being a witness to those who had self-harmed and had mental illness in high school
he wanted to create the app in hope that through technology those friends,
people, and even strangers online could connect in one central place by talking
to each other and helping one another by understanding their issues and being a
source of support and comfort that most people don’t have from others closer to
them or even from family. The overall idea of “Runaway” is for it’s users to,
“The users will go into the app and they’ll get paired with a volunteer, and
the volunteer will just do the same thing I was doing with these people, which
was to listen to their problems and give them a safe space to talk about
everything that is bothering them. The second module is going to be a
positivity zone that will be on the Runaway website, which will be filled with
positive poetry, positive quotes and art, pictures and happy music. Just a
place where if someone is feeling sad, they can come online and really try and
cheer themselves up with those things. The final module is going to be events.
I’m looking to host a lot of events and workshops this semester around the
Binghamton campus, and hopefully, after that, go on to different schools and
colleges to talk about mental health and promote mental health awareness, as
well as how people can help if they see cases of mental illnesses emerging in
people around them.” I think Sethi is doing an amazing job of combining
technological advancements to help solve a problem that is very relevant and
important in or younger generations. I applauded him for his dedication to his
project and really making an effort to push this movement and bring awareness
to those who don’t exactly feel as if they have a voice.
Mind
Freedom: is a nonprofit organization that unites sponsor and
affiliate groups with thousands of individual members to win human rights and
alternatives for people labeled with psychiatric disabilities. Mind freedom
claims to have this be their claim in what they do as an organization, “In a
spirit of mutual cooperation, Mind Freedom leads a nonviolent revolution of
freedom, equality, truth and human rights that unites people affected by the
mental health system with movements for justice everywhere.” Their goals are to
help gain more human rights regarding mental illness, challenging the massive
abuse of drugs in psychiatric drugs, being a support system for those who need
it, and advocating and promoting the safe/humane and effective options and
alternatives to mental health medications.
The
Withdrawal Project: is a project that believes that people
should speak out publicly about psychiatric drug dependence and
withdrawal, and that leaving these important choices to licensed medical
practitioners shouldn’t be allowed and that people should have control over
their bodies and what they are putting into it. With the right treatment, and
non-medicinal treatment the withdrawal project believes people can overcome the
stigma and even the mass hysteria of the normalization of medication to be the
“only” treatment for mental illness. With the right guidance, help, support and
decision making the project hopes to educate those who are having trouble with
making the decision to switch or want to have control over choosing what
happens to their bodies.
These 5 artists inspired my project because they are dedicated to their causes and passionate about wanting to truly end the abuse of psychiatric drugs for mental illness. There are other options and forms of treatment that don’t need powerful drugs and these artists bring awareness to that and spread the word and help the community of mentally ill people by making sure they are educated on what’s going on. They all want to make sure that people have a choice in what they do to their bodies and mind. They are all truly inspiring and that’s why I wanted to make this project a reality.
Poem (PT 1 of my project) I wrote this to combine a narrative and to include a more abstract form of artwork/writing within this project of bringing awareness.
Plastic Hair Clip
Your plastic
But you hold her together
Yet your teeth seem to be so inviting
Waiting for her hair to be in between your cracks
Yet your teeth can bite back
Biting the small strands that get caught
Suffocating her hair and her weak mind
Yet somehow, she turns to you for comfort
And everyone keeps telling her to pin up her hair back up
Shoving different colored clips in her hands
But all she wants is for the pain to stop
Just make it stop
Every time she looks at you
A tear comes to her eyes
She dreads the thought of having to live with you
She’s frustrated
She’s sad
She’s confused
She’s angry
When she’s in the middle of a mental breakdown
You were there to pin her hair back up
Supporting her
Giving her the illusion to believe she was stable enough
Tricking her into thinking if she got her hair out of the way things would be ok
That life wouldn’t be a problem anymore
All life was to her was a burden on her shoulders
You knew, you always knew
That you were never the solution
You kept her wanting more
Feeding her addiction
She was reliant on you
Over and over again
Her Anxiety, Depression and the list goes on
A clip for this, a clip for that
Her hair was filled with little clips
Each one holding a different part of her brain
She was blinded by the daze you put her in
She wasn’t thinking straight
Lines were getting blurred
She felt like a zombie walking
What was real
What was fake
What was right
One day when she had the courage to take you out of her hair
It all came falling down
Her hair cascading down her back
Tangled and messy
A new sense of freedom on her horizon
All you ever did was be a temporary problem solver
She had nowhere else to turn
Nobody would ever listen
She clung to you like air
Air that came at an expensive price
A fog that was blocking her vision
Clouding her mind
Her mind was jumbled
She was lost without her clips
Yet she felt as if a weight was lifted off her shoulders
Maybe she didn’t need you anymore
Her dependency was fading
You were becoming a thing of the past
She threw you out the window
And away you went
Her life became better without you
The clouds above her head had cleared
She wasn’t trapped anymore by the suffocation of your teeth
You weren’t hanging on to her nor needing to clamp her mind shut
Her locks roamed wild a free
She had found her own way
Opening a new door
A new world
A new life
A new perspective
A new reality where she didn’t need her plastic hair clips was possible
Soundcloud Link (Audio Reading of my Poem by Me): https://soundcloud.com/sofia-n-678146451/plastic-hair-clip-reading-sn
Social Media Ad (PT 2 of my project) I made to bring awareness to the issue and for those to share freely on social media to spread the word about this issue and bring awareness.
Social Media Ad Google Drive Link (Please share on Social media either posting it or on your stories. There are PDF/JPEG/PNG File Versions): https://drive.google.com/open?id=1MIrAqpRAdivYYEbUTmcw9RPKMH6riJgH
Pictures:
This picture, in particular, is an ad I saw posted on Demi Lovato's Instagram that was bringing awareness to the increased mental illness and issue that can result from this pandemic being as everyone is spending mass amounts of time inside their homes.
These two pictures are of Musical Artist Yungblud as mentioned above he creates music creating to the problems in society we have today as well as his concern for the mentally ill population of youths all over the world. He touches upon topics of Psychiatric drug use, depression, abuse, rebellion and the stigma of many different topics.
This is a picture of Mad Pride's logo as it is the symbol for their activism and when they organize events this is shown pretty much everywhere to be a call to action for all those who want to fight against medication use and believe we have the right to be free and choose what we want as our treatment.
This is a picture of MindFreedom's logo they also use this as their symbol to call to action anyone who wants to join the cause and fight for their rights as people who have mental illnesses and want other options other than drugs. I mentioned them in my AD as well being as I think their cause is really helpful and they offer lots of resources and information on their website to those who need it or want to learn more.
“About The Withdrawal Project.” The Withdrawal Project, withdrawal.theinnercompass.org/page/about-withdrawal-project.
Gladwell, Hattie. “Mental Illness Doesn't Excuse Treating People Badly.” Metro, Metro.co.uk, 12 Dec. 2019, metro.co.uk/2018/06/03/mental-illness-doesnt-excuse-treating-people-badly-7564873/.
Glaser, Gabrielle. “'Mad Pride' Fights a Stigma.” The New York Times, The New York Times, 11 May 2008, www.nytimes.com/2008/05/11/fashion/11madpride.html.
McCarthy, Mike. “First Person: The Mental Health Model of 'Forced Treatment' Doesn't Work - PublicSource: News for a Better Pittsburgh.” PublicSource, 28 Oct. 2019, www.publicsource.org/mental-health-system-model-of-forced-treatment-doesnt-work/.
Piedad, Ross. “How Can We Change Minds About Mental Health?” Texas Public Radio, www.tpr.org/post/how-can-we-change-minds-about-mental-health.
Roffman, Otis. “Meet the Inventor of Runaway, a Peer-to-Peer Mental Health Resource.” Study Breaks, 20 July 2017, studybreaks.com/students/satvik-sethi-runaway-mental-health-app/.
“Supporting Artists with Mental Illness.” Procentive, procentive.com/destigmatize-mental-illness/.
“Win Human Rights in Mental Health!” MindFreedom International (MFI), 22 Mar. 2020, mindfreedom.org/.
“YUNGBLUD.” Genius, genius.com/artists/Yungblud.
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