About 50 University of Michigan faculty and students gathered Wednesday afternoon in the Arts and Architecture Building to view the culmination of a semester-long project in which students created a series of six posters addressing mental health issues. The project grew out of a collaboration between Michigan Medicine and Stamps School of Art & Design, in which art & design students collaborated with the Department of Psychiatry to focus on mental health issues.
In an interview with The Michigan Daily, Nunu Qualkou said the idea for the partnership grew out of similar collaborations in the past. Previously, the School of Art and Design worked with the Department of Public Safety to create posters depicting the history of racialized police violence in the United States. The collaboration began following a presentation by art and design professor Francis Noonu-Quarkoo, who teaches in the class. The contributors met someone at his DPSS who wanted to share information about American social movements with the public.
Kat Bergman, senior marketing and communications supervisor at Michigan Medicine, said in an interview with the Michigan Daily that she was inspired by these posters, a collaboration between DPSS and the School of Art & Design. Ta. Bergman said the posters allow him to showcase research in the field of mental health in a new and unique way.
“For us, that was a really great thing. We work in the health field, so we’re learning more about people living with mental illness, what it’s like to live with mental illness, and how research is progressing. And we’re always writing stories about what it’s like to be ‘underfunded,”’ Bergman said. “But in a creative setting, you never really collaborate, so we needed to come here and inspire the students and their creativity and everyone who is taking a different approach.”
Professor Bergman decided that student-created posters would promote the mental health services offered by the university, as well as raise awareness of the diagnosis of various mental illnesses. She hopes the project will give students a hands-on learning experience and allow the University of Michigan Medical School to better communicate on campus about the stigma surrounding mental illness. Stated.
“From a customer perspective, our customers are health care providers in Michigan, so it’s great that the students get this learning opportunity to work for our customers, and that they create posters that they can actually use. I was very excited about both,” Bergman said. . “These mental health posters cover the different areas of mental health that our students have worked on, and in addition to displaying them in our buildings, we are also putting them online in Dropbox so that anyone at the university can download them. I was excited to think about doing this by talking to them and kicking them out. And you’re talking to real students who are actually working, to real audiences on campus. ”
In Nunoo-Quarcoo’s semester-long class, students were given a list of mental health topics and related university resources. Nunoo-Quarcoo asked students to create a consistent theme for their posters. Rachel Breshnahan, marketing and communications specialist in the Heinz C. He also said that he gained a lot of background information.
“On the first day of class, we had a panel discussion with researchers, physicians, and leadership-level people who talked about what the reality of mental health is in Michigan health care and in Michigan health care.” Bresnahan said. “Then the next week we had a panel discussion with people who lived their experiences, so I invited some people from the Prechter program where I work, and they asked the students, “What is it like to live with bipolar disorder?” “It’s about providing these real-life experiences.”
Following the presentation of these topics, Michigan Medicine personnel met with the class throughout the semester to track progress and suggest revisions. The students spoke Wednesday with university leaders, including Nasu Malas, director of the Pediatric Consultation Liaison at C.S. Mott Children’s Hospital, Gregory Dalack, director of psychiatry, and UM Health Directors Robert Ernst and Kelsey Stratton. The completed poster was presented. Chief Behavioral Health Strategist at UM.
Art and Design junior Liza Miller’s poster focuses on the potential of art therapy to help people with mental health issues, which she herself uses as a means of creative expression. She said it came from using art.
“I’ve been thinking about helping my own mental health, and I feel like art is the best thing I can use as an outlet,” Miller said. “Art can be used as a form of therapy. Specifically, I love visual art, but other people can write, dance, or do more, and they can use it in their own way.” You don’t necessarily have to be good at it to use it as an outlet.”
Bayley Fraker, an art and design junior, said the poster focusing on obsessive-compulsive disorder was also based on her own experiences.
“I decided to focus on obsessive-compulsive disorder because I felt like it was widely misunderstood, even though Michigan doesn’t have a specialized place to study it. I wanted to shine a light on that,” Fraker said. “This disorder is often stigmatized and not talked about enough, but so many people like me struggle with it. This was definitely out of my comfort zone, but through typography I’m glad I was able to show them what (OCD) is like.”
Breshnahan said he believes cross-campus collaboration is important and beneficial to the entire UM campus.
“This has become a huge thing because a lot of people are really interested in cross-campus collaboration and want to focus on mental health on campus,” Breshnahan said. “Mental health has become even more important in the last few years and this has brought to light all the great research and studies that we are doing, and you may be experiencing mental health in a completely different setting. It’s really great to be able to work with students from all over campus who are able to look into the lens more than myself. ”
Daily staff reporter Alyssa Tisch can be reached at: tischaa@umich.edu.
