Collaboratively Design Mural for Mental Health Week
19/11/2019
Stemming from a painting program I coordinated for headspace Darwin, I was contracted by Palmerston City Council to collaborate with local youth, aged 14 -18, to paint a mural to mark Mental Health Week 2017. The brief was ‘positive messages’ and location was an outside wall of a basketball court at Palmerston Recreation Center. Palmerston is a region of the NT with high youth unemployment low socio-economic status which has led to a cohort of disengaged youth and numerous anti-social behaviours.
In a one day workshop, I explored the brief with the participants, brainstorming what ‘positive messages’ meant to the young people and using these ideas to move towards some collaborative design work. Three mural concepts were developed and voted on, with the selected design transferred and painted by the group over the next two weeks. During this time, we also involved any young people who used the recreation centre to contribute a positive word or phrase to the wall. One young boy proudly came back to show off his “be safe” to his friends; we were told afterwards he was a known ‘troublemaker’ so his enthusiasm and engagement was a huge success. The mural and the collaborative project received extremely positive feedback from participants and Council.
