From the first years of life, every human being is immersed in the complex process of constructing his or her own identity. However, although it is an individual and idiosyncratic process, it takes place in a specific socio-cultural context in which other adults, institutions such as the family or school, and explicit or implicit norms and already defined social patterns have a great influence.
The aim of this workshop is to approach this phenomenon openly and to deal with it from the first-person experience of each of the participants, to facilitate reflection and the joint creation of a space for artistic expression that helps to understand the self, one's own real social identity and to identify the factors that have intervened in this process of construction.
The people in charge of the workshop are:
Therapeutic part: Alberto Fernández, graduate in Psychology.
Artistic-creative part: Mónica Cases, graduate in Fine Arts.
DEVELOPMENT OF THE ACTIVITY
In each of the sessions there will be a brief visit to different areas of the permanent exhibition of the museum No és fácil ser valencià (It's Not Easy Being Valencian), extracting reflections and concepts that are raised in a global way for the personal construction of identity. Afterwards, there will be a break and we will move on to a practical activity related to the subject dealt with through experimentation, emphasising the main objective of this process: to understand and work on identity through art and reflection.
ACTIVITIES
Walk through Identity
Walk through Identity is an introduction to identity as a concept and how it is formed in each of us, how it is constructed throughout our lives. This activity is an approach to the museum as an entity and a space for leisure and relationships. It consists of two sessions:
- SESSION 1: Urban Signs _ Human Signs
- SESSION 2: Vital X-ray
Journey through Identity
In Journey through Identity we will delve into both global and individual identity. In addition to the concept and its formation, we will discuss the changes it undergoes during our lives, the conditioning factors that cause these changes and how to approach the way to Re-Create our Identity.
This activity consists of four sessions:
- SESSION 1: Urban Signals _ Human Signals.
- SESSION 2: To be or not to be
- SESSION 3: Discovering Walls
- SESSION 4: Vital X-ray
Claudine Bernardes, writer and teacher of narrative in therapy, collaborated with us in the session Discovering Walls. She is the author of the story The Walls of the City, created for this project.
Organisation of the sessions
Both Walk through Identity and Journey through Identity will have a duration of 3 hours, including group reception, break and farewell. These sessions will take place in consecutive weeks, subject to possible changes in duration depending on the process we are in.
PARTICIPANTS
Although the project could be developed for the general public or people belonging to other groups, in this case it has been adapted for a very specific public, people diagnosed with mental health conditions. The appropriate number of participants for these sessions is 10 people, with a minimum of five, and a maximum of around fifteen, bearing in mind that the activity is offered to groups belonging to the same area:
- Day hospitals
- Medium-Stay Hospitalisation Units (UME)
- Medium and Long Stay Hospitalisation Units (UMLE)
- Rehabilitation and Social Integration Centre (CRIS)
- Day centres
- Sheltered housing
- Associations
- Other mental health facilities
Among these centres, the collaboration with the Psychiatric Hospital of Bétera, belonging to the Provincial Council of Valencia, stands out.
