What does an anxiety disorder feel like? What does a depression feel like? What does trauma feel like? What do the many different mental disorders feel like? How can you put something so personal this into words? Many people find it difficult to impossible to put these feelings into words. Several (former) patients have tried to put this into words in dozens of autobiographies. Yet, you can only capture so much in words. An emotional state can be captured even better through art, ranging from paintings, sculptures to video, music & dance.

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Many patients struggle to express how they feel as words oftentimes fall short. Many therapists and next-of-kin struggle to really understand what's happening inside their loved ones. Art therapy has helped many patients already during therapy, yet this Challenges poses the next step as this will culminate in an professional organised travelling exhibition, including seminars.

 

During this Challenge we will enter a collaboration between a number of art academies, their students and several dozen (former) patients. Several dozen teams, consisting of (former) patients and art students, will create works of art that visualize the state of various mental disorders. Obviously this state is always personal, but it does give a better insight into what this feels like.

 

This Challenge will be realized in the first semester of the 2025/2026 school year. The assignment will have to be completed on Friday, January 30, 2026. The initial presentation of all works of art will take place on Tuesday afternoon, March 3, 2065.

 

After this premiere, this art exhibition will travel around the country. For this, we are working together with Stichting Open Mind, which already has a lot of experience with social art and exhibition projects. In 12 months, we will visit our 12 provinces. The artworks will be placed in four different sea containers for this. In each municipality, these sea containers will be set up for a month. The sea containers are open on both sides and are placed in such a way that people can walk through the interior spaces and admire the artworks.

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In each municipality, we will also work together with local partners to further bring this theme to local attention.