FACEing Mental Illness kicks off new art project
"Common Ground" will pair professional artists and individuals with lived experience to create art that explores the similarities in their thoughts, feelings and emotions
With the release today of our latest episode, “A Conversation with Sharon Fekete,” the FACEing Mental Illness project is putting its podcasts on temporary hiatus as we turn our attention to a new mental health/art collaboration we’re very excited about.
Those of you who’ve been around since the inception of FMI’s journey know that our original project, in 2015-16, included an art exhibition with works by people with lived experience who shared their feelings about their mental health challenges in self-portraits. The 80+ piece exhibition, which hung in the Selby Library in downtown Sarasota for a full month, helped eliminate misconceptions and stereotypes about mental illness, exposed the creative talents of the artist/participants and helped encourage and normalize conversations about mental health.
We’re returning to those roots, but with a twist. This time we’re pairing individuals with lived experience and professional artists. These artist teams will create a work, in any medium, that explores the commonalities in their mental health experiences. “Common Ground: Finding Connections Within Our Human Struggle,” is a collaborative project between FMI, the nonprofit SPAACES Art Foundation/Gallery and SRQ Strong, a group of area residents committed to increasing awareness about the impact of trauma. It will culminate in an exhibition at the SPAACES gallery in Sarasota, in April 2024.
Like our original art project, the objectives for Common Ground are multi-fold: To normalize mental health experiences while sharing stories of challenge and recovery and to empower individuals with lived experience to serve as educators and advocates for a positive change in our attitudes and conversations about mental health. It will demonstrate once again the positive power of tapping into our creativity, expression and human connection as a way to share and care for the mental well being of us all.
Teams will be paired at the end of October and will work together over five months, at their own pace and with their own process, to create their artwork. There will be “open studio” times for them to work in the gallery if they so choose and FMI will be following and documenting their progress on this platform here — sharing some of their works in progress and the stories behind them.
Because FMI has always made its stories and podcasts available to all without charge, we need to raise a little money for this project to cover the cost of artist supplies, reception expenses and marketing. If you’ve enjoyed our work and are in a position to help, we’d welcome your tax-deductible donation. Checks can be made out to the nonprofit SPAACES Art Foundation (att: Common Grounds project) and sent to 2087 Princeton Street, Sarasota, Florida 34237. (Nonprofit/Tax ID number is 84-5004237.)
As always, you can reach us anytime at faceingmentalillness@gmail.com. Thanks you for your continued loyal support of FACEing Mental Illness and its projects and participants. Stay tuned for updates as our art project get underway!
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Exciting! As someone who very much appreciated the original FACEing project (and who has been following the written posts but can‘t really do podcasts), I’m very much looking forward to seeing what comes from this.
Thanks, Katz. No one else I’d rather have in my corner. :)