Passages et connexions : adapter artistiquement et médiatiquement les témoignages de personnes vivant avec un trouble anxieux
Anxiety disorders are among the most common mental health issues in Canada. Not only is anxiety prevalent in a pathological form, it is also a state most human beings experience during their life, which makes it an interesting starting point to approach the issues surrounding mental health in general. Anxiety disorders, as other illnesses and disabilities, are often invisible. This makes them all the more challenging to live with. This research-creation project engages with this problem by reflecting on how we can “make visible”. More precisely, it aims to explore and understand how testimonies of persons living with an anxiety disorder can be adapted through arts and media – and therefore be rendered visible in various ways. The research was undertaken in three stages: 1) the collection, through the topical life story method, of testimonies by people living with an anxiety disorder, 2) artistic adaptions of these accounts by invited artists, 3) receiving feedback from the participants who had offered their testimony about the adaptation of their story. The research project allowed me to investigate how experiences of anxiety disorders can be translated into art, but also how the people involved in such a process (both artists and those sharing their story) experience this process. In the spirit of research-creation, I also set forth to share the stories, art pieces and knowledge resulting from this exchange to a larger audience through the medium of the web. Guided by the concept of curation, I endeavoured a second (media-oriented) adaptation phase, resulting in an online exhibition, Anxiogenèse. This allowed me to reflect in a more personal way about adaptation as a creative process, in addition to contributing to raising awareness about anxiety disorders. Finally, analysis of the research data highlights a few key ideas: on the ways in which elements that are external to the original testimony contribute to the adaptation process; on how participants construe the adaptations of the testimonials in ways that are literal, metaphorical and abstract; on the ways that the participants connect and relate to each other despite not having met; and lastly, on how the concept of adaptation takes on various meanings throughout the project, including through the curation process.
Adaptation Arts Curation Anxiety disorders Mental health Testimony Narrative Research-creation Online exhibition