Like most of us, Engineering student Emily Anderson has found the pandemic conditions governing our day-to-day lives challenging at times. But amid that angst, Anderson came up with a creative idea to help her peers: an innovative art project for Engineering students to express themselves on canvas.
The idea for the project came to Anderson last September, inspired by her experience attending the popular Montreal edition of the immersive Vincent van Gogh exhibit in the summer of 2019.
“I was so impressed by the exhibition that it had been on my mind for months, so when virtual school resumed in September and I really felt myself struggling with mental health and wellness related to the pandemic. I thought it would be great if we could create an exhibit at McGill that was full of art made by students as a way of expressing their emotions and addressing how they feel,” Anderson says. “I noticed I was having a lot of conversations with people who were expressing the same feelings of loss and stagnation as me, so when I read about the Engineering fund for projects related to mental health I applied.”
The response she received from the Faculty and its Student Initiatives Funding program, which is supported by McGill donors, was fantastic, she says.
“At the beginning when they got our project submission they were so engaged and wanted to help us allocate resources, help with promotion, provide financial support, assist if we needed spaces to work, and more,” Anderson says. “They were very supportive in every way I could’ve imagined.”
Once the logistical issues were ironed out, Anderson and fellow Engineering student Julia Rafferty began organizing a series of socially distanced workshops, enabling fellow students to come be inspired by art and work on creating their own as a means of expressing how they’re feeling.
Stephanie Kirichu, a Mechanical Engineering student, attended one such workshop with Maria Lucotti from the McGill Student Wellness Hub's Art Hive.
“This initiative gave me the opportunity to sit back and reflect on how the past two virtual semesters have affected my mental health,” Kirichu says. “I usually turn to journaling to get my feelings onto paper, so it was really refreshing to use art to create a visual reminder of the little things that bring me joy in the present."
An eye on a virtual vernissage
With two more workshops planned in the coming weeks, Anderson is hoping they’ll have ample student works to launch the virtual vernissage in June.
“Once it’s open on June 5th, we’ll just keep the website going and we can add to it over time, hopefully in perpetuity,” Anderson says. “We’re hoping to eventually create a 3D virtual walk-through experience, and of course keep the workshops going so that people can continue to come be inspired and create art, contributing new pieces to the virtual vernissage.”
Keeping the discussion around mental health going is critical, especially in heavily technical faculties, she says.
“I feel like there’s a lot of discussion now around well-being across the University and I think we need to continue to actively engage on the subject so that it doesn’t become nuanced and fall to the wayside of heavy course loads and other projects,” Anderson says. “I also think in Engineering in particular dealing with feelings through creative pursuits and providing students with a creative outlet to express themselves is striking because it’s quite different than other activities in the Faculty. It’s a novel way to bring mental health to the forefront and I’m so excited about the response so far; I hope this is just the beginning.”
Mental health and wellness have long been a priority across McGill, with programs and projects in faculties, as well as campus-wide support groups and initiatives. The Student Wellness Hub, based on best practices and developed with input from students, is a $14-million initiative that is redesigning the way McGill provides physical and mental health services to students.
The new approach provides a broader set of options to students and includes a range of programs in addition to clinical offerings, with the aim of engaging the entire McGill community. The service is looking to fill a real need on campus; a survey completed in 2019 indicated that approximately one quarter of the student body had accessed some form of psychological or mental health service at McGill in the previous year.
To learn more about the Vernissage or to register for an upcoming workshop, consult the group’s Facebook page.
Groups in the Faculty of Engineering often receive funding for club activities, conferences and competitions through Student Initiatives Funding, which is supported by donors who give to the Faculty through The McGill Fund.