Imagine a time you tried to explain a dream you had to a friend - did they understand all the horrors and unicorns in it? Most likely not, they weren’t a part of the universe that was your reality in the dream. You try harder, but it starts to get boring for the ones listening because they can never really see what you saw. Then imagine that this dream is in fact your reality and your world, but no one still quite understand the realness of your reality.
Words are sometime not covering, when it comes to explaining mental vulnerabilities. Therefore we tried to tell stories through materials, rather than words. With our project we want to create a relatable experience that can help people gain empathy with people challenged by vulnerable minds. Our motivation for doing this project stems from experiences with witnessing how people we love have struggled to explain what mental illness feels like in order for other people to understand it. Often people try to explain mental illness with metaphors, but what if we tried to create some of these metaphors in a material way, could it maybe help the understanding between people?
All The Invisible Things is a co-design project that culminated in a two-days exhibition, where we invited people to explore three installations. It was an interactive exhibition, where visitors had to engage with the installations by crawling through a room or sitting in a box. Furthermore we asked them to reply to the installations by doing their own small makings to express a response to the exhibition.
The project focus on explorative design inquiries and experiments with how to create dialogue by carefully attending and making use of designerly materials. The process up to the exhibition focused on meeting young people with experiences of a vulnerable mind or mental illness. We asked the participants to express and tell some of their stories through different kind of materials. The result was a series of small makings. These makings served as sketches for the exhibition pieces, the dialogue tool.
The project is carried out in collaboration with Kirstine Elmhøj Hansen and in partnership with Copenhagen Municipality.