Creations in the Islands break the taboo surrounding mental health

PalmIt was at the end of January 2019 that the writer Neus Canyelles published her sixth book, The best vacation of my lifeAfter a hiatus of almost six years, the novel's protagonist is a writer named Neus who recounts her time in a mental health facility after attempting suicide. "She's a writer. She hasn't written anything for four years. She claims to have retired. She can't remember a good time since she was fourteen. She speaks of her life in a distracted way," says the report that the narrator reproduces in the book itself. Seven years later, in Canyelles's new book, a collection of short stories Waiting rooms Also published by Empúries, the psychiatrist's office becomes the setting for the reunion of two characters, two women who met as children and who have been scarred by the abuse one of them suffered at the hands of her schoolmates.

As is often the case in the work of this Mallorcan author, winner of awards such as the Letra de Oro and the Ciudad de Palma, also in Waiting rooms The certainties and, above all, the doubts that accompany any mental health disorder are described with a naturalness that is as disconcerting as it is eloquent, as unusual as it is appropriate. According to the World Health Organization, more than a billion people worldwide suffer from them—that is, one in seven. Until relatively recently, however, in the cultural sphere, all these diagnoses were, at best, taboo; at worst, rife with prejudice and clichés. Fortunately, in recent years the situation has begun to change, as awareness campaigns and efforts to educate the general public have increased.

In the first person

Among the numerous projects in the Balearic Islands that have linked culture and mental health in recent years, three types can be distinguished. The first consists of creators who share personal experiences. Besides Canyelles, this group includes the cartoonist Gonzalo Aeneas and the writer Almudena Sánchez. Aeneas is the main protagonist of the comic. The Olympics of suffering (Dolmen), winner of the 2020 Ciutat de Palma Prize, explores the reality of depression through the text, written by Enric Pujadas, and the illustrations, by Aeneas himself. Depression, an illness for which health centers in the Balearic Islands treat some 30,000 people each year, is also the central theme of the novel. Drug (Random House) by Almudena Sánchez. In the text, the author herself explains her objectives in writing the book. "I want to define an abstract state," she says, "because I am healing and I don't have any scars to show that I've been through something terrible."

In addition to narratives focused on the authors' personal experiences, the last decade has seen an increase in another type of work related to mental health: those that encourage people diagnosed with mental illness to use art as a form of expression. These range from the pioneering Estepa Teatre, a company associated with the Estel de Llevant group, to the recent documentary. In a place in the mindDriven by José Corbacho and Catalina Solivellas in collaboration with 3 Salut Mental, numerous and diverse initiatives have emerged in this area. Also noteworthy, for example, is the photographic exhibition I am not my diagnosis., driven by psychologist and photographer Vicente Galaso, and the project The Shape of Dreams, promoted by the University of the Balearic Islands.

A Sick World

The pairing of culture and mental health has also resulted in works such as the feature film The first woman, by Miguel Eek, and the play Bad MoonHector Seoane's work, in which the authors approach real situations and people to create works that invite reflection on these issues, is also included in this category. The multidisciplinary project The Butterfly Fire, which the actress and writer Agnès Llobet presented more than ten years ago. The starting point It was a book of poems, published by Ediciones del Despropósito with illustrations by Francisco Javier Barrera, born from Llobet's own contact with patients referred from psychiatry who resided in supported housing. From this book came a play of the same name, which, however, the actress avoids categorizing as a "mental health project." "I don't think it's correct to define it that way, because I didn't have the tools or the resources to speak authoritatively about these issues," she states, "what I wanted was to approach them from an artistic perspective." And while Llobet acknowledges that much progress has been made in recent years in addressing these issues, she doesn't hesitate to point out that there is still a long way to go. "A lot of work has been done to raise awareness," she explains, "but it's clear that it's not enough. We have a sick world, sick with inequalities, accelerated pace, and pressures. Given this, the resources allocated to mental health should be increased, because they are essential," she asserts.