Art Therapy

“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?”

THE TORTURED ARTIST

The arts have long found themselves linked to mental health, especially due to the myth of the tortured artist that perpetuates a certain stereotype about artists and the creative process. Critics across the world have praised the works of Boston-born poet Sylvia Plath, yet her infamous suicide is as well known as her seminal novel “The Bell Jar.” Writer David Foster Wallace, who similarly suffered from depression throughout his life, committed suicide at the age of 46 and has often been referred to as a literary genius—but one whose tortured brilliance was prematurely terminated. Even the post-Impressionist master Vincent van Gogh is popularly recognized as having struggled with mental illness, his prolific career cut short by a self-inflicted gunshot wound at age 37. Already larger-than-life figures, these artists have gained a greater air of mystery due to their tumultuous lives.

Although it may be tempting to characterize artists as solitary individuals manifesting inner distress in their artwork, student artists argue that this romanticization of mental illness trivializes depression and misrepresents the artistic process. English concentrator Jennifer T. Soong ’14, an inactive Crimson Arts writer, thinks that mental illness and the creative process are often erroneously conflated. “I see [them] as very separate things. I think it’s very dangerous to superimpose [them], and I don’t think there’s anything romantic about either one, and especially not the two together,” Soong says. “Mental health is just your mental state, which is your way of being.”

For last year’s Arts First festival, Soong collaborated with psychology concentrator My Ngoc C. To ’15 on plans for a public art installation that would provoke students to think more introspectively about their lives. Titled “Mental Space,” the piece was conceived as a large spiral structure in the middle of Harvard Yard. “The walls would be covered with objects that people would bring to the spiral, to show the emotional topography of Harvard students,” To says. The two assembled a team of artists and even established an official student organization called Harvard College Mental Space, which allowed them to secure grant funding from various sources. “We wanted it to be a public art project because mental health issues are often such an isolated phenomenon,” she says. “Having something so private be put in a public space where everyone could interact with it would help stimulate some more dialogue.” However, bureaucratic hurdles involving the construction of such a large piece ultimately stonewalled the project, and it was never completed.

Before “Mental Space,” To also worked on another installation in Pforzheimer House consisting of full-length mirrors placed in common areas. Each mirror was labeled “This is what depression looks like” and covered with sticky notes representing common stigmas such as “Depression is the result of a character flaw.” As students walked past the mirrors, they were encouraged to remove sticky notes, literally peeling away the stigmas surrounding depression, until only an uncovered mirror remained. “I think that art is a really powerful way of moving people, and sometimes it takes something like art to really understand what mental illness is like,” To says.

Mental health remains a deeply personal subject for To, who has previously struggled with depression. “Being depressed, it sinks you in such lows that normally you wouldn’t be able to comprehend, so you see a darkness that is beyond what normal life is like, and that’s something that’s very powerful,” To says. She ultimately took a gap year as a result of her mental illness. During this time, she wrote a memoir titled “The Washing Room,” which describes her experiences with suicide and psychiatric care and frames them within the context of her Vietnamese-American background. Her book, which was published this year, was exhibited in the 2013 Boston Book Festival.

For To, writing was both a healing process and a way to move on. "Writing about my experiences really helped for me to turn a painful experience into something that was much more than that—into a work of art,” she says. “Being able to write my story and frame it into a book with a happy ending is really therapeutic." However, To decries the trope of the tortured artist, stating that depression in no way fueled her writing process. “I think that creativity and mental illness are completely separate things. I feel even more creative now that I'm healthy and on top of things.”

MAKING THEIR VOICES HEARD

On a Friday evening in mid-October of this year, students gather in Boylston Hall’s Ticknor Lounge. The room’s comfortable red armchairs have been rearranged into a semicircle, and students sit facing the chalkboard at the center of the room. A solitary microphone stands at this stage, under dim yellow lighting that complements the warm wood paneling of the lounge. More groups of students enter and make themselves comfortable on the floor or a windowsill as Harvard Speak Out Loud’s mental health open mic, “Words on the Mind,” begins.

For the third year in a row, “Words on the Mind” has drawn an ever larger and more varied audience. Representatives from all five undergraduate peer-counseling groups are also present in addition to staff from Student Mental Health Services. The audience itself is a veritable cross-section of the College, with some attendees never having been to a spoken word event before. One student rises to describe her struggle with identity as a woman of color; another laments the isolation engendered by the superficiality of social interactions on campus. The sheer passion and raw emotion pouring forth from each speaker is a testament to the community that Speak Out Loud has established. Maura D. Church ’14, a member of the organization’s board, considers these events a supportive forum for student self-expression. “This can be a positive space and a space for mental health and art to kind of be joined in a positive way. It may not necessarily be a certain kind of emotion that’s generating the art or generating the poem, but the space is framed in a way that allows any kind of art to happen,” Church says.

Cassandra E. Euphrat Weston ’14, current member and former co-president of Speak Out Loud, appreciates the openness of the space in encouraging audience members to share their experiences. “People come and tell stories that they didn’t plan to share, but they were sitting in the audience and they feel moved to share something, and all of these kinds of sharing tend to be very personal and brave, and it’s a beautiful space every year,” Euphrat Weston says. “I think that each person approaches their art and this topic in their own way, and our hope is that people find this a healing space. I’ve also had friends tell me personally either that they [found] or they expect[ed] to find it a triggering space.”

A speaker will occasionally preface their piece with the phrase “trigger warning,” cautioning the audience that the deeply personal nature of the forthcoming content may serve as an emotional trigger. Yet everything that is shared—from stories about physical and emotional insecurities to encounters with depression and suicide to commentaries about Harvard in general—is affecting not only because of its content, but also because each vignette resonates with the audience members and their own personal experiences. Particularly insightful moments are met with a chorus of snaps from listeners.

“This is a great way to make the issue visible, make the help visible, and make the fact that there’s a supportive, strong community that’s willing to listen also visible as well,” Church says. In addition to open mics, Speak Out Loud also runs weekly workshops, which are open to all students and encourage conversation about any subject. The workshop before this year’s “Words on the Mind” featured conversation about mental health issues, balancing this heavier topic with a corresponding focus on the benefits of self-care.

Current co-president Oluwaseun L. Animashaun ’14 sees workshops as a way in which the organization promotes discussion about important issues through writing and sharing. “I definitely think now—with the structures we have in place—that people can actually not only take what they’ve heard and talk about it with their roommates, but also use that to create art in their own right.”

“A MORE ANALYTICAL LENS”

For Kwan, art is simultaneously a reflection of personal experience and a cerebral process that provokes thought in both the artist and the audience. Last fall, Kwan worked on a show titled “Counterpoint” at the Loeb Drama Center Mainstage, a collaboration between the Harvard-Radcliffe Modern Dance Company and the Harvard Ballet Company. Kwan’s piece, “Safe Space,” channeled dance to discuss sexual assault on campus.

With the piece, Kwan hoped to raise certain questions about a subject that often goes undiscussed: “What does it mean to feel safe on campus? What does it mean to create something that ensures someone’s safety? Is that even possible? Those kinds of issues,” Kwan says. In the spring, Kwan also worked with the Office of Sexual Assault Prevention & Response and the Harvard College Women’s Center to produce an experimental show called “Yes or No?” at the Agassiz Theatre that explored similar themes.

To Kwan, these performances were meant to intellectually examine deeply personal issues and engage the audience in important dialogues. While acknowledging the raw emotional power of events such as the mental health open mic, Kwan also see a place for more structured investigations of the same ideas. “When you listen to a poem that is someone pouring their heart out in terms of their emotional experience, hopefully the audience has a visceral reaction to that. But then, when you see something thoughtful, that looks at something through a more analytical lens, hopefully the audience thinks about that too,” Kwan says.

Perhaps the greatest strength of Harvard’s arts community is its solidarity. Although every individual approaches the issue of mental health from a different perspective, the community hopes to be an accessible way to address difficult issues. Artists often explore deeply personal and sensitive topics, and their artwork provides a powerful medium from which discussions can originate. As students increasingly call for mental health reform and dialogue, Kwan views art as an essential tool for catalyzing the changes many want to see. “[Art] has the power to make the audience think and feel, and both at the same time—and hopefully in the future, do.”

—Staff writer Alan R. Xie can be reached at alan.xie@thecrimson.com.