Tag Archives: creativity

Fifth Intervention

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After my last tutorial with David, I switched tack and actually changed my upcoming intervention that was meant to happen the next day. Awful timing, I am aware. But I didn’t want to create an intervention that actually didn’t feel like the right thing to do. Chatting with David about how I find my creative spark whenever I lose it got me thinking about how my methods could help others. After all, my stakeholders are all studying something creative, so harnessing that creativity and using it makes sense.

For someone who hates being in front of the camera, I feel most empowered when I am taking self portraits. And I think it is safe to infer that creative people feel their happiest when they are creating something. I thought back to my BA dissertation about self portraiture as a form of therapy, and found a lot of inspiration.

I decided to create a 10 day challenge. I would have liked to do it for 30 days but there’s a time constraint at play here and I don’t have quite enough time for that. I have shared the link to the challenge on my personal and photography Instagram accounts, as well as on my Facebook page. I also told previous participants in my research about it in case they wanted to take part, although I am hoping to engage with a wider range of stakeholders for this intervention.

I don’t necessarily want to see the artwork – that’s not the important thing here. I know that might sound weird so let me explain. When I create self portraits, or any photography that is just for me, I don’t want to show it anyone. If I show it to people, they’ll invariably have an opinion and the way I feel about the photograph will change. So for this intervention, I want the artwork to stay with the person creating it. And of course they can show it to people if they wish, but I don’t feel comfortable demanding that they send it to me to be displayed on my blog for anyone to see. However, I do want to hear if it changes the participants mindsets and if it has any affect on their feelings of being an imposter.

I realised after setting this challenge that people could just lie to me, however I have aimed to counter this by making the people who have said they are taking part sign something that promises they’re actually going to. It could also feel intrusive to read what they’ve actually written so I plan on asking for feedback both through a survey and through written/spoken feedback.

Creative Interventions as Empowerment

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For my BA Photography dissertation, I wrote 2000 words on photography as a therapeutic tool. From an outside perspective, self portraiture can be seen as narcissistic and vain. Studies have shown that self portraits allow people to get in touch with aspects of themselves that are yet unexplored, and can aid in the process of healing from trauma. There is a reason that art therapy is used a lot by therapists and in prisons.

The practice of the self-portrait can be incredibly empowering. It means using photography to look inside ourselves. To work on our inner world as a way of opening or deepening our unique creative process, which can be developed with any form of artistic expression, or even life itself. To start a dialogue between our thinking mind and our ‘gut’ to draw from an inexhaustible source of meanings which must be expressed. (Nunez, 2009)

In the midst of struggling in my third year of my BA, I created a photo series documenting my journey through 30 days of a depressive episode (see images below).

Today I Left The House For an Hour
I Hate My Body
Felicity – 0 Brain – 1

I am not saying that every working class student who is struggling with imposter syndrome should take self portraits and then they’ll feel better. That would be a rather sweeping and naive statement. But I think that there is a way for universities who specialise in art, to use art to empower their students who come from less represented groups. Maybe that manifests itself in a monthly theme to create work to respond to, or maybe that’s just the invitation to start a personal 30 day challenge accompanied by daily thoughts that are written down.

Nuñez, C. (2009). The self portrait, a powerful tool for self-therapy. European Journal of Psychotherapy & Counselling, 11(1), pp.51–61. doi:10.1080/13642530902723157.

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