reTHiNK

re-THiNKing the value of madness

RETHiNK "What's on your plate?"

Media Release 8 June 2010

What’s On Your Plate, Auckland?

When Carolyn Milbank and Colleen Altagracia found out that their proposal for What’s On Your Plate had been awarded a RETHiNK Grant, they were already working on making the project happen. “We were busy getting the project underway [by] involving the current database of 150 people from the two previous projects,” says Milbank, who has already run two other successful respond-response projects with her partner-in-art Altagracia.

The RETHiNK Grant was a project by Mind & Body Consultants and Like Minds, Like Mine daring the people of Auckland to develop a creative project to reduce mental-health stigma and discrimination. Like Minds received nearly 40 applications for the Grant and RETHiNK What’s On Your Plate came third.

Altagracia says they were, “over the moon!” about creating a “project that will hopefully

provide some benefit and understanding to other members of the community at large.” RETHiNK What’s On Your Plate plays with the Kiwiana tradition of bringing a plate and explores the idea that madness is a response to stressful experience. Members of the Auckland community with and without personal experience of mental disorder are invited to attend one of several community gatherings, which will be run around Auckland until August. Gathering participants are asked the question “What’s on your plate”, and invited to respond in whatever form inspires them . A final interactive installation of ceramic plates featuring some of the responses will be exhibited at Te Tuhi Gallery in Pakuranga later in the year, with an advanced preview to be held in the foyer of the RETHiNK Theatre Challenge performances during Mental Health Awareness Week.

RETHiNK What’s On Your Plate comes close on the heels of two other successful respond-response projects, asking members of the public to respond to a particular question. The pair thought that respond-response matched particularly well with the RETHiNK aims and saw “a great opportunity to normalise the discussion of mental health issues and to use our Respond-Response format to highlight these concerns.” This project invites the public into dialogue about mental ‘illness,’ allowing, comments Milbank emphatically, “the individual’s voice to be heard,” and, adds Altagracia, “the sharing of stories… the stories people share with us are genuine – real stories by real people.”