ACADSA HEAR/D RESIDENCY PROGRAM EXHIBITION CATALOGUE FALL 2017
Autumn Skinny Dipping by Derek Read, 2014 I’ve had some dips, some dark dips into the dark waters of past hurts, remembered fears. But even after a sleepless night there was some buoyancy a floatation over little dreads, imagined catastrophes vexatious irritations. Hopes kindled have not returned to their hidden lairs and bears crap joyously in the woods as the leaves fall I will travel in the Spirit find friendly shores open arms, open hearts.
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Contents PG 6
About the ACADSA Hear/d Program
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Message from the Director of Leadership and Governance
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Message from the Mentors
The Only Room Alexa Shipanoff 10 With a Door That Locks fragmentation | depersonalization | Ayesha Lantican 13 dissonance Katelyn Liakos 14 Through It All She Holds On Riley Thérèse 16 Unless You Want To Signy Holm 18 Gamut Sylvie Reddick 20 Deep Breath Mental Health & Addictions Emergency Numbers & 22 Resources (Calgary Area) 22 Acknowledgments
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About the Hear/d Residency Program WHAT IS IT? The ACADSA Hear/d Residency (previously known as the AiR “Artists in Residence” Program) is a pilot project developed by the ACAD Students’ Association. The residency has its own central theme of resilience, relating to the journey of mental health issues currently experienced by many post-secondary students. Drawing on this theme, the Hear/d Residency program invites participants to explore concerns that are affecting post-secondary students in a creative and innovative way. The Hear/d Residency asks students to collaborate on the research, development, creation and curation of an exhibition that allows our community to safely explore these themes while offering hands-on experiences that directly relate to the fields of art + design. Through group discussions, reflection, individual studio time, critiques, and workshops this residency will provide a platform for a diversity of creative activity that aims to raise awareness of the issues that are affecting the health and well-being of post-secondary students, while also connecting members from different disciplines in the college. Artists working across all mediums who share a deep interest in these issues are invited to gather, brainstorm and create.
WHAT IS RESILIENCE? “Being in good health means more than feeling physically well; it also means feeling mentally well. Today, we are more aware of how our mental and physical health affect each other. Setting aside time to focus on mental health is important – to you and those who care about you. Life is full of change, risks and challenges. Good mental or emotional health helps us find our balance and stay in control, even during turbulent times.” – Canadian Mental Health Association (2017)
HOW IS IT FUNDED? The ACADSA Hear/d Residency program has been part of a larger provincial wide initiative for the last four-years, which was funded by the Alberta Campus Mental Health Innovation (ACMHI) fund. Students’ Associations across Alberta have had the opportunity, through the Alberta Students’ Executive Council, a provincial lobby group, to apply for funding in order to support mental health initiatives on campus. Each association is asked to consider the uniqueness and strengths of their campus when applying for ACMHI funding and to create a program that supports and connects with their students’ interests. As of 2017, this funding period concluded. ACADSA is now the sole funder of the Hear/d Residency program.
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Message from ACADSA’s Director of Leadership & Governance First and foremost I would like to offer congratulations and a heartfelt thank you to all of the mentors and participants in the Hear/d Residency program. Throughout my time here at ACAD the exhibition has been a visible and powerful force working to destigmatize mental illness in our community. This is incredibly important in a school of this nature where we experience higher percentages of students struggling with mental illness. I am so proud of all of the students who opened themselves up and allowed themselves to be vulnerable, sharing honestly with and responding compassionately to each other. You are so brave and I admire the strength you bring to this school, and to addressing this difficult subject matter. This bravery has had a direct affect on the willingness of students in this school to open up and reach out for help when they need it. When resources for mental health are not always accessible or within reach, this program creates a space where students can connect in a way relevant to their lives and their practices. I am so proud to be a part of an organization that prioritizes mental wellness the way that our Student’s Association does. Thank you to everyone working behind the scenes who makes sure that this program keeps running, as well as constantly striving for the best this program can be. The Hear/d Residency program truly couldn’t exist without you and I personally can’t thank you enough. All of the features the program has had in various summits and media releases are well earned. It is my hope moving forward that the Government and our parent institution recognize and support the programming and results that ACADSA and other Student’s Associations are developing and implementing. As we all face more troubling times, this program provides me with the encouraging notion that whatever happens, we will stand together and face it side by side. Sincerely, Camille Porcheron Director of Leadership and Governance Alberta College of Art + Design Student’s Association
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Message from the Mentors The Hear/d residency offers an opportunity unlike any other to students at ACAD. The participants are encouraged to make a work of art which explores the topic of mental health and illness through their own experience and interpretation of this term’s theme: resiliency. By providing participants with an honorarium, they are encouraged to explore an idea or way of making which may have been unattainable otherwise. We also uphold a sense of professionalism which is more in line with a residency experience that would be in place outside the college. As mentors, myself (Alisha Marie Adams) and Brandon Giessmann worked to facilitate a safe space for residents to discuss sensitive topics surrounding mental health and resiliency. It was through conversations during group meetings, individual studio visits, and group critiques, that we were able to gain insight to the participant’s unique understanding of how mental health affects them. Empowering these conversations helps with the destigmatization surrounding the discussion of mental illness. Since Brandon and I are peers in our final year at the college, we were able to support each other throughout the residency. With a mutual understanding of each other’s busy schedules, we were able to help share the weight. In meetings one was always there to offer assistance if the other had a loss for words, or if they needed to address an uncomfortable situation. I believe it was our being opposites in almost every way, from my paper day planner compared to Brandon’s iPad, that made us successful in the facilitation of the residency and the curation of the show. Additionally I don’t think it would be possible to write a response of my time as a mentor if I didn’t take a moment to bring your attention to Jeannie Gorrie, ACADSA’s Health and Wellness Program Manager. Jeannie is the heartbeat of the residency; without her it would simply not exist. Her continual support has been invaluable, and the insight she has in the field of psychology was such a strong asset. I believe I can speak on Brandon’s behalf when I say we are incredibly thankful for Jeannie and all the hard work she put in throughout the duration of the residency. The Hear/d Residency to me is a vibrant addition to our school, and the most impactful peer support group I have had the pleasure to take part in.
- Alisha Marie Adams 8
Over the several years that I have been attending ACAD there have been challenges for a variety of reasons. Maintaining my mental health and wellness was, and still continues to be, something that requires a lot of effort. It has taken years to reach a point where I believe I’m doing well. The Hear/d residency played a large role in that. When I was a resident, it enabled me to speak openly about struggles I still wasn’t comfortable with discussing in a classroom setting. It allowed me to meet people I likely wouldn’t have otherwise, and bond through a mutual vulnerability about the struggles we have encountered or witnessed surrounding mental health and illness. The same can be said regarding my experience as a mentor for the residency. I was given the wonderful opportunity to work with Alisha Marie Adams, who complemented my personality and work ethic beautifully. The two of us offered consistent support to one another and understanding that this is a marathon, not a sprint, and I truly think this endeavour was more successful and enjoyable because of her. Thankfully, we also had several peers accompany us on the journey who provided plenty of insightful and educational contributions to the numerous discussions we had. Alisha and I were fortunate enough to get to know each of them and learn about their varying practices and diverse backgrounds. We got to know them, hear about their interests, as well as witness them create and share some outstanding artwork. The opportunity to collaborate with one another, work towards an exhibition dedicated to the theme of resiliency in relation to mental health and illness, was fantastic. I believe it is a key program within ACAD’s walls, as it addresses something students are intimate with on a daily basis, and utilizes a language that we are all familiar with. It’s truly unique, and plays a valuable role in reducing the stigma and secrecy surrounding mental health and illness that so often leaves people feeling alone or invisible, and instead replaces it with a sense of belonging, solidarity, and understanding.
- Brandon Giessmann
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The Only Room With a Door That Locks Alexa Shipanoff Installation
I’ve spend a lot of time in bathrooms doing anything except what bathrooms are generally used for. Some people may view them as a dirty room used only when is necessary but for me they’ve always been a safe haven. This is a place where it’s ok to not be ok. Whether you’re locking yourself in a high school bathroom stall to play candy crush because you have no one to sit with a lunch or having a psychotic break and need a place to melt down that are one of the only places that gives you full privacy to do that. When talking about mental health and recovery we have to SC knowledge that it’s not a smooth incline to success and that it’s not something you can just cure. Using playful childlike aesthetics, I augmented the reality of the space you are about to enter in an attempt to translate a mental state into a physical place. Please feel free to interact with the space as you see fit.
Response Statement When I think of the word resilience I don’t imagine someone who stands tall despite life pushing and pulling them in all directions. I imagine someone who despite being batted to the ground again and again chooses to get back up. When we talk about recovery we have to acknowledge that it’s not a smooth incline to success and for many people there is no end game. There’s no point in which you are cured. But there are victories. I am a flawed person who relapses and makes mistakes but that doesn’t erase all the progress I have made. The goal of my work for the past little while has been to create a place to represent a mental state and I think I really achieved that with this piece. One thing I didn’t realize was that even though I created a place to represent a very negative state of mind, I represented it in a state of decay. I originally thought that was just part of the whimsical nature many of my works take on but upon reflection it goes deeper than that. I created a place that isn’t cared for. It’s not maintained or visited often, although not fully abandoned. I think it represents where I am in my own journey of recovery.
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Working with the Hear/d residency made me think further into the things that I’m already exploring and helped me realize some things about the work, and about myself, that I hadn’t recognized before. I think the residency is really valuable in opening the doors of communication around mental health and giving people who experience it a platform. I think the conversation around mental health is often lead by those who don’t necessarily experience it and it’s good to hear from those who do.
fragmentation | depersonalization | dissonance Ayesha Lantican
Projection, medication bottles, paper fragmentation | depersonalization | dissonance presents common routines not as how it is in reality, but how it feels and how it is imagined after being done for so long. Maintaining balance in terms of mental wellness is exhausting no matter how long it has been practiced. The physical routine becomes monotonous, and mechanical while thoughts and memories begin to blend together and confuse themselves with reality. Images overlap and vary in clarity over the day just as memories and thoughts vary in their coherency. The physical objects interact and distort these images, but the objects themselves are static, maintaining a strong connection to reality.
Response Statement I am so grateful to be provided with the opportunity to participate in this residency. It was wonderful to be able to come back to my roots as an artist and create personal art about my mental health. This residency pushed me out of my comfort zone and gave me the motivation to work on something that wasn’t an assignment. It gave me the freedom to make a piece that I thought was meaningful without the restrictions that are often placed on us. I was able to begin creating a deeper connection between my work and my mental health, which is a valuable learning experience I would not have had otherwise. Along with this, I am very pleased to have been introduced to a community of people who have a deeper understanding of the struggles I face, especially in the context of education and responsibilities. Hearing different perspectives of familiar situations gave me more inspiration than I expected. Knowing other people who are following a path with similar struggles is incredibly encouraging, and I hope this residency continues to provide meaningful experiences to all who are able to participate in it.
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Through It All She Holds On Katelyn Liakos Video instillation
The world around me keeps spinning on, it is fast paced, smells become indistinguishable. The air stands still it tastes stale. different colours b-l-u-r to grey A windowpane of rainy patience. Voices screech painfully noises w~h~i~r~l to echos not unlike sanity fleeing to a place inside myself. An eye of the storm Next destination cool solitary, timelessness calm. serenity Destination Dissociation Poem By Anonymous
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Response Statement I have always been scared to be open about my struggles with mental illness. That if I were to tell people about it, I would be seen as weak. That sometimes a basic everyday task to me is like climbing mountain. That it would somehow make me less of a person. I feel that the Hear/d residency was a very important step in me becoming more open with my mental illness. To see other artists making incredible art and dealing with mental illness in their day to day gave me a new perspective. That in order to be better and mentally healthier, I need to be kinder to myself. Resilience is being kind enough to yourself to realize you’re still a work in progress and you’re still growing. I am grateful for the wonderful time I have had at the Hear/d residency.
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Unless You Want To Riley ThÊrèse
Shirt, stuffing, thread Unless You Want To is an observation and collection of the traditional ways of comforting oneself. By combining tropes of strength, vulnerability, and security, I attempt to comment on forms of resiliency (both toxic and not).
Response Statement Through the Hear/d residency program, a small group of us connected over the shared experience of creating work discussing mental health. In our meetings, we examined forms of resiliency in the face of mental illness, which provided me with a platform for creating my piece. In investigating coping as a form of resiliency, I created several studies on coping before settling on plans to create the soft sculpture I did. The residency gave the other participants and me a platform to share our pieces with the community, which allowed for these discussions of resiliency to continue beyond our group. The Hear/d residency program was an overall positive experience, which itself is practicing resiliency through its perseverance despite budget cuts. As hard as it is to see the ways in which the residency had to be cut back, it inspires hope in its continued successes.
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Gamut Signy Holm Digital prints gamut [gam-uh t] noun 1. the entire scale or range the gamut of dramatic emotion from grief to joy. 2. Music. the whole series of recognized musical notes. the major scale. Human emotion, as most know, exists on a broad spectrum. An emotional state can also exist in tandem with other emotions simultaneously, and therefore it can be difficult to categorize how one is “feeling” in simple terms (ie. sad, angry, etc.). Gamut is a series of video stills seeking to illustrate this diversity and complexity. There is mystery and obscurity in the means of creation of the images, which reinforce isolationism and the difficult process of reconciling with the vast and fluctuating states of one’s own self.
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Response Statement Mental health has always been a prominent and recurring theme within my work, however that isn’t to say that I have always felt comfortable talking about mental health in the context that I’ve exhibited my work in. Exploring my own experiences with mental illness and channeling those experiences into my works has been extremely cathartic for me, however I have always been wary of how work as “personal” as my own will be accepted within institutional environments. I would often write off ideas for work precisely because of this. I would undermine my own work with the fear of seeming too narcissistic, or with the fear of making others uncomfortable due to my unyielding honesty. Through participating in the Hear/d residency, I had the opportunity to develop my piece Gamut with a support system that encouraged me to take pride in my vulnerability. I felt that using myself as a model for the work was more performative and sincere than a non-representational depiction of myself, which ultimately strengthened my message. My process involved manipulating a video of my face with translucent objects through a projector while taking another video of this process, and finally taking stills from that video. In this way, the act of making was intuitive and at times spontaneous. I have always considered myself to be bad with words, and have always had a hard time verbalizing my emotions. I attempted to translate feelings that are fleeting yet reoccurring in a visual manner, and although my own face was represented in each image, there is room for anyone to leave their own impression on the piece. I believe that we all exist in a state of emotional flux, and that these emotions are unique to our own selves and personalities. Emotion also exists on a spectrum, and multiple emotions can be experienced at the same time. My hope is that conversations around mental health will change through more programs such as the Hear/d Residency which seek to create safe, encouraging spaces. Patience, understanding and empathy are essential catalysts to create a more accepting and nurturing environment for mental wellness.
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Deep Breath Sylvie Reddick Embroidery
DSM-5 301.83 (3) identity disturbance: markedly and persistently unstable self-image or sense of self (9) transient, stress-related paranoid ideation or severe dissociative symptoms I can’t move my arms. I can’t feel my brain. I can’t see. Who am I? Why am I What is happe n i n g . . . I can’t describe dissociation. I’ve tried countless times but it’s impossible to speak of without inducing it. I want to be able to talk about my experience without it suffocating me, which is why I do art. This piece is an embroidered description of dissociation. I’m generally incoherent when I try to talk about my mental illness, but somehow in art incoherency and ambiguity make my pieces feel stronger.
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Response Statement Most of the art that I do is rooted in my experience with mental illness – however, it is usually satirical and lighthearted as a result of a fearfulness to be open. My diagnosis is one that is heavily stigmatized (sadly most diagnoses are), which is why I don’t talk about it; I am always afraid that someone will discover my secret and I won’t be seen as myself anymore but rather a walking talking disorder. This fear is debilitating and makes it extremely difficult for me to achieve closeness with other people. The Hear/d residency gave me the opportunity to talk about my experience in a safe environment and showcase serious work about mental illness in a supportive setting. The focus of my piece was dissociation, which is something I hadn’t actually experienced for months. I thought I had healed myself, but the opening night of the show I dissociated again. It was terrifying to relive something that I had thought was in the past, but I learned that suppressing my illness is not the same as being healed. Following the show, I went to therapy and was open with the therapist for the first time. It was also the first time I have ever felt that I’d benefited from therapy – I felt clean. This experience opened my eyes and pushed me to help myself recover even further.
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Mental Health & Addictions Emergency Numbers & Resources (Calgary Area) Police
Community Resources (continued)
Calgary Distress Centre
Access Mental Health Phone: 403-943-1500 OR 1-844-943-1500
Crisis Centres/Hotlines Phone: 403-266-1234 (non-emergency) 911 (emergency) Phone: 403-266-4357
Resources on the ACAD campus Campus Counselling Centre Location: Main Mall Website: https://acad.ca/current-students/healthand-wellness Email: counselling@acad.ca Phone: 403.284.7666 (Counsellor) 403.338.5594 (ACAD counselling intern) Campus Security Phone: 403-284-7672/403-680-1451 Health Centre (SAIT Health Services) Address: SAIT CAMPUS (R41, Senator Burns Building) Phone: 403-284-8666
Distress Centre Calgary Phone: 403-266-4357
Online Resources Native Counselling Services Of Alberta http://www.ncsa.ca/contact/ HelpGuide.org http://www.helpguide.org Calgary Mental Health Association http://www.cmha.ca ACAD Resources https://acad.ca/current-students/health-andwellness/staying-well/mental-health-resources
Community Resources Calgary Communities Against Sexual Abuse (CCASA) Phone: 403-237-5888 Calgary Counselling Centre Phone: 403-691-5991
CATALOGUE ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
The Eastside Family Centre Phone: 403-299-9696
PHOTOGRAPHY BY NICHOLAS GUNHOUSE COVER ILLUSTRATION BY JOANNA PUNO LAYOUT BY KIAH GUTOWSKI
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