← Back to Search Results

Component Evaluation: Expressing Ideas in Art

History in Practice

SEARCH

Psychiatric Gaze

  1. Medicine and Power Module»
  2. The Psychiatric Gaze»
  3. Component Evaluation: Expressing Ideas in...»

Green kitchen weigh scaleComponent Evaluation: Expressing Ideas in Art

Timing: 30 Minutes
Mode: In-Class; Online

Front image of The Gaze sculpture: patient head is located inside a rat's cage with tube connecting it's mouth to a black funnel. The funnel is overflowing with brightly coloured psychiatric medications. The "patient" stares straight ahead, expressless, it's eyes are only dark indentations in the sculpture. The funnel in its mouth renders it speechless. There are 3 labels on the front of the cage: SCHIZOPRHENE; ALCOHOL USE; [REPORTED] INAPPROPRIATE SEXUALITY
“The Psychiatric Gaze” sculpture, created by two project community experts, from 4 angles
Image of The Gaze sculpture from the left side and slightly above.
“The Psychiatric Gaze” employs sculpture to say to future mental health practitioners THIS COULD BE YOU.

An art intervention can be an original piece of art or an interaction with art that has been created by another person.  Exploring course content through the production of artistic interventions allows students to process information in a multimodal fashion.

Ask students to look at the Psychiatric Gaze Sculpture and download and read the accompanying community experts Dana Allan and Alistair Scott-Turner’s artists’ statement, either online or in class.  Then invite them to propose a design for a piece of art that responds to the sculpture and to also suggest a public space where it will be placed. Student designs should be a conceptual/visual representation of an egalitarian patient-practitioner relationship (may include characteristics, values, beliefs, practices). As part of their work students should explain the rationale for their proposed design and its location.  This activity can be done in class or online.

Instructors and students may choose to take this assignment one step further and create their planned art intervention.

If this is a graded assessment, then chose the flexible timing option and focus on the students’ ability to explore complex ideas and communicate clear understandings of major module takeaways when marking the artistic intervention.