Health Arts Reseach Centre - media training

2012 April - Sydney NSW

Change Media worked with 12 participants, aged 14-63, during a hands-on 2-day workshop at the Sydney North Shore Hospital. Participants included director and staff from the Health and Arts Research Centre, HARC, Glebe community development workers, Burundi community members with refugee background and people living with mental health issues. All engaged with the Change Media production and training methodology, which included a basic intro to equipment and digital media narratives and how to create relevant digital media art works.

All participants trained hands-on in no-nonsense video techniques, including HD camera and sound work on Day 1, a strong focus on recording interviews on Day 2 and how to build engaging narratives, create video messages and artistic documentations. Three main project proposals were developed, alongside mentoring for several individual concepts.

We also developed a scope for a larger partnership with the Health and Arts Research Centre, to create art with people living with dementia, as part of a long term research project. We started to develop creative concepts to support survivors of involuntary ElectroConvulsiveTherapy, ECT, in finding creative ways to address issues around memory loss, the injustice experienced and ways to connect to other electroshock survivors and advocate for changes in the mental health system.

In feedback sessions during both days – from initial expectations, to how the process worked and what possible future collaborations may bring – we discussed our process, costs, time frames and how to engage communities.

The feedback was enthusiastic throughout, people reported that they learned new and relevant skills, confronted and overcame fear of technology and made new connections. Especially moving was the feedback for our ways of challenging perceptions and representations of ‘other’ and life-changing moments for some participants as they developed new ways to cope creatively with very difficult mental health issues. The team decided to meet again with the next 4 weeks and was very interested to run more workshops with us.

Partners

Australia Council for the Arts Creative Community Partnership Initiative

Health and Arts Research Centre HARC