The Vision for a Better Life in a World in Crisis
What does “crisis” or “difficulty” mean to you?
What does “hope” or a “better life” look like?
How do we navigate these questions within our professional and activist circles?
These questions were addressed by the Centre for Culture and the Mind and the Observatory for Rights in the Field of Mental Health from Greece, over a year and half of collaboration. With the mutual goal of exploring the limits of dominant biomedical discourse on mental distress, we made space for alternative perspectives, drawing on our own experiences in Denmark and Greece and striving to go beyond the researcher-participant division. The result was a collaborative research process based on the creative methodology of Photovoice, which generated nuanced visual narratives of individual and collective experiences of crises, hopes and organized action.
We invite you to take a look at this photographic journey and gain some practical insight into creative, user-led, critical approaches to the field of mental health.
Free entrance, no registration required!
June 8
Opening of the Photovoice Exhibition
17:00-17:20: Inaugural panel discussion with the research collaborators
17:20-19:00: Photovoice Exhibition & Reception
June 9
Workshop Day, led by the Observatory for Rights in the Field of Mental Health (GR)
Workshop A
10:00-12:00 Photovoice Methodology
This workshop will give participants a taste of the photovoice process. After a short introduction and coffee break, participants will be divided into groups in which they will create their own visual photovoice narratives. People who are interested in attending are advised to bring a functioning camera with them (which could be a phone-camera).
12:00-13:00 Lunch Break
Workshop B
13:30-15:00 Psychiatric Advance Directive (PAD)
Participants will be introduced to the concept and practice of crafting a personal PAD, a legal document that establishes and protects an individual’s “psychiatric will” to be used in the case of a mental health emergency. Sample material will be provided and people will have the opportunity to draft and take home their own PADs.
Bios of the Collaborating Groups
The Observatory for Rights in the Field of Mental Health is an organization that has been working since 2006 in Thessaloniki, Greece with the aim of defending the rights of people involved in the mental health services system and promoting alternative, non-psychiatric ways of addressing psychological suffering. It operates as a grassroots network of people involved in the mental health system, including users of psychosocial services, their relatives, and mental health professionals. It is open to the participation of anyone else who shares its philosophy and goals. For more information, click here.
The Centre for Culture and the Mind is a research centre which is based at the University of Copenhagen, Denmark- It explores how the human mind and the individual have been imagined in different cultural, socio-political and disciplinary contexts, examining the assumptions and forces which shaped such definitions. For more information, click here.