REFLECTION 2: Peer review 1

Since my SOI I have changed my focus to exploring the links between creativity and mental health. It is something I keep stumbling across, a big debate on the Eye on Design website. It is also something I as a creative would love to solve and a more narrowed approach to exploring anxiety and depression. Initially, I thought about doing some editorials, which describe some of these links. However, I found this to be too limiting. To represent creativity, I found myself using obvious symbols like pencils and paint. This is something I would like to avoid. It also wasn't doing anything to help sufferers of anxiety and depression and this is something I aim to do.

In terms of primary research, I want to do a questionnaire to find out how creativity and mental health come together in my peer’s lives but I am struggling to know which questions I can and can’t ask. This is something I need to be very sensitive toward, so I am going to get it checked by multiple tutors before I use anything. I also managed to get the contact of the curator of the Bethelm Mental Hospital gallery, who I emailed last week. He hasn't replied yet but fingers crossed!! I definitely need some more personal insights.

Generally, I am finding looking at anxiety and depression and trying to visually describe them a struggle. The aim of my work is to use my knowledge to describe them enough to start a conversation and explain them to non-sufferers. I know that as a non-sufferer I can never fully understand them myself and I am not trying to. With the knowledge that I don’t have anxiety or depression I’m finding that people have a very negative opinion on my work from the outset and I have had this voiced a lot. I am finding this difficult and I am unsure how sensitive to be. I have been using visual metaphor to clearly describe different feelings (inner conflict, struggle, tension). However, I am worried I am in danger of making light of a dark issue. Perhaps a more abstract approach would be better. It was suggested that I could use movement and sound to contort a brain on after effects and create an immersive experience. This could work well. In order to tackle this I am going to keep showing my work to friends who suffer from anxiety or depression, to discover which works best.

People also keep suggesting that my images would work well as editorials. However, I don’t want to go in this direction. I want to make the designs more accessible to sufferers (my target audience is still men age 21-25). I am interested in maybe starting a campaign or bringing the designs into a context that they are interested in like fashion. I need to start interviewing some of my male friends to see if they have any insights on how to do this. I thought that the ‘Time to Change’ beer mat campaign was interesting because it bought the conversation to them. Maybe I could do a subtler version of this?