VIDEO
2015
EN HJÄLP
NÄR LIVET ÄR
SVÃ…RT
(Translate: A help when life is hard)
This video work is about a heavy and serious theme but with a clear satire on the lack of mental health care in Sweden. Its about a young person's attempt at recovery with an guide on activities that the youth clinics gives out to young people who struggle with mental illness in Sweden. These absurd activities is a help against self harm and suicidal thoughts. I wanted to test them out and film this and show how comic and useless these activities really is.
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I got inspiration from Marina Abramovic who mentions in an interview that "to get over your dark years you have to dare to laugh at it."
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Translation to video:
The list in the video existing of a couple of activities directly taken from the A4 paper you get from the youth clinic:
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"The youth clinic's skills list"
1. Have a pillow fight with a wall.
2. Buy indian beads and sort them in different colors - say the colors out loud.
3. Draw with a red pen where you want to hurt yourself and put on a band-aid.
4. Blow up balloons and pop them.
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The text in the end:
This work is based on various encounters with mental health care in Sweden, which nowadays distributes these to self-destructive young people between 17-23. The list consists of 40 different activities similar to these that they think will help young people overcome their anxiety.
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