Art Therapy - Students Shed Light on Mental Illness through Art

 

“Harvard isn’t always the glossy ivy-covered utopia that many conceive it to be. There are moments of that place, yes. Walking past Memorial Church in the fall with reds and oranges on the ground around you, the first warm day in the spring when students on blankets adorn the Yard. Brochure Harvard does exist. The reality of the situation, however, is that this is not the Harvard that many students must wake up to and battle every single day. It is not always a place where conversations about mental health are necessarily encouraged.”

 

Penned for The Crimson two years ago by an anonymous student, the essay from which this excerpt originates brought campus-wide attention to certain realities about mental health at Harvard, serving as the catalyst for a wave of discussions among faculty and students about the issue. A similar anonymous op-ed published just last semester, "In Sight, Out of Mind" further highlighted what many construed to be unsympathetic policies and a lack of accessibility to mental health resources at Harvard, spurring additional conversation about mental health services and reform. Student response to these pieces was overwhelming—from an impromptu rally outside Massachusetts Hall to a town hall event sponsored by the Undergraduate Council, mental health quickly rose to the forefront of campus discussion.

 

Active in the effort to raise awareness of mental health issues have been Harvard’s artists—for instance, spoken word organization Harvard Speak Out Loud has hosted an annual mental health open mic for the past three years. Other artists have sought to generate awareness about the subject by creating public installations around campus.

 

Through a variety of different disciplines, the arts have collectively provided Harvard students with an outlet for creative self-expression, allowing them to explore issues of mental health in safe spaces and with a freedom of expression that allows for emotional catharsis. One campus artist who has utilized art to generate discussion about mental health, Bex H. Kwan ’14, sees the two as inseparable: “What is art not on mental health issues?”

 

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