Part of the Love Arts Festival in Leeds in 2014, the windows of the Nation of Shopkeepers bar and Leeds City Council's Central Library were transformed by collaborative group which included myself, filmmaker Zoe East, and community artist and photographer Loren Turton.
The festival explores the connections between art, mental health, and wellbeing, so for the installation we vox popped Leeds and asked them "When you are sad what makes you happy?" This simply question made many realise that we all have mental health and sometimes it isn't well.
We entitled the installations 'Get Happy Leeds' as a call to action to take care of our health and to turn the usual preconceptions of mental health on their heads and focus on happiness rather than depression, or the more extreme and less common symptoms of associated illnesses.
The Nation of Shopkeepers 'window of opportunity' featured three cinema displays which displayed a short film showing the respondents and abstracted images of their answers, from ice cream to watching movies to walking in the countryside to Facebooking.
Above: film shot by me, edited by Zoe East
Stills were taken from the film and created into a hanging installation at the Central Library.
Above: film shot and edited by me
To further engage people in conversation about mental health and the arts, the installation was supported with branding and Twitter and Vimeo accounts. I created the logo and icon for the installation.
www.gethappyleeds.co.uk, created by Loren, provides more information about the Get Happy Leeds installation, or visit the Vimeo site to see more videos.
