| Affiliations: | College of Arts and Humanities |
| Team Leader: |
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| Faculty Mentor: |
Jason Burrell
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Team Size:
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2 |
| Open Spots: | 2 |
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Team Member Qualifications:
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No experience required. Experience in creating annotated bibliographies is preferred. |
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Description:
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Mental health struggles often go unspoken, untreated and suppressed. According to the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA), in 2018, more than 2 in 5 young adults were left untreated of the 8.9 million who reported having a mental illness. In 2020, about 1 in 5 American adults experienced a mental health condition in a given year (SAMHSA). This project provides new imagery to the conversation of mental health needs and neurodivergence through paintings and immersive soft sculpture. It channels my personal experiences of anxiety, depression and neurodivergence to create lighthearted, emotional art pieces made with yarn, poly-fil, paper, felt, paint and wood. Inspired by the artistic practice of Keith Haring, I design iconographic characters to portray mental health struggles and balance the portrayal of neurodiverse challenges with comforting, humorous visuals. The work creates empathetic spaces where invisible conditions become visible, giving others a new means to discover and explain these intangible struggles through art and polite humor. The project would require team members to help conduct research on the topics of neurodivergence, mental health care, history of soft sculpture and the cute. Team members would also be asked to help visually document the project’s process. |