Forum Gallery, Teslina 16, Zagreb

VRAPCE PILLOWS

December 7 – December 23, 2015

Project devised by: Andreja Kulunčić (visual artist), Dubravka Stijačić (speech therapist, social educator and psychotherapist of the Vrapče Psychiatric Clinic), kunazlatica (design team), Vlatka Prstačić (leader of creative workshops in the Vrapče Psychiatric Clinic).

Co-authors of the pillows: patients of the Vrapče Psychiatric Clinic

Associates: Hrvoje Bielen (web design), Ivica Hrg (web programming), Irena Bekić (text), Ana Kovačić (coordination of the parts of the project) and Sanja Baković (media campaign).

The exhibition and workshop Vrapce Pillows form together the third part of the Destigmatisation project. The whole project, developed in collaboration with patients of the Vrapče Psychiatric Hospital and a team of associates, launched in 2010 by artist Andreja Kulunčić with psychotherapist Dubravka Stijačić, deals with the problem of discrimination of and prejudice about people who have mental disorders and illnesses.  The project is aimed at empowering them, through their becoming themselves, as patients of the hospital, actors in the process of destigmatisation in the public eye.

The pillows were devised and made at workshops at Vrapče Clinic, in association with the kunazlatica design team and leader of the creative workshops Vlatka Prstačić. Promoting the pillows through a media campaign is part of the project, speaking out in public about the taboo topic of Vrapče and its psychiatric patients.

The entry point to involvement in the campaign was adopting a pillow and putting one’s photographs with the pillow in various situations and at various locations on the Facebook page of the project – www.facebook.com/vrapci/org/ or by purchasing a pillow from the Association for Psychosocial Aid and Rehabilitation, headquartered in Vrapče Hospital, via a Facebook auction.

While the exhibition in Forum Gallery is on, the process of making the pillows will be reconstructed; they are still being sewn within the context of the occupational therapy workshops at Vrapče Hospital.  Visitors to the exhibition will be able to take part in making them, or buying pillows, and in this manner contributing to the process of destigmatisation.  Earnings from the sale of the pillows are meant for the Association for Psychosocial Aid and Rehabilitation that helps the patients in Vrapče Hospital.

Talks

During the time the exhibition is on in Forum Gallery, a series of talks was held on the topic of mental health:

Tuesday, December 8, 6 pm: “Depression and how to cope”

Thursday, December 10, 6 pm: “Personal experience of depression” (presentation by a former patient)

Tuesday, December 15, 6 pm: “How to preserve one’s mental health: are we mentally healthy or mentally ill?”

Thursday, December 17, 6 pm: “Long-term unemployment and mental health: what does employment mean for mental health?”

The exhibition is supported by the Ministry of Culture of the Republic of Croatia and the Vrapče Psychiatric Clinic

www.facebook.com/vrapci.org/

www.vrapci.org/