The Impact of COVID-19 on People’s Mental Health
For many young people like myself, we’ve been aware of our mental illnesses long before ‘pandemic’ was a word that we used every day. Now, after a year of lockdowns, Zoom burnout, grocery shortages, and many more issues, people have been experiencing mental health issues that they may have been blind to before. The CDC reported that in June of 2020 40% of the 5,412 people that were surveyed were struggling with their mental health of substance abuse (CDC.org). Of those 5,412 people, younger people, ages 18-24, 75% reported that they were struggling with mental illness.
Background Information and Inspiration
Cabinets of curiosity allowed for people to show off items they had collected to friends and family. These cabinets which can be traced back to the late 1500s, were typically much larger than the cabinets we think of today, spanning entire rooms filled with natural and fantastic items brought back from one’s journey to faraway places. For the rich Westerners that could afford to travel, buy, trade, and collect items, their cabinets reflected the way they saw the world. The cabinets did not have to display the objects in them in a specific manner or even include sufficient information about the object; the social status of those who kept cabinets along with the contents of one said everything about how one saw the world, thus reflecting the owner’s identity and taste.
These once intimate spaces of treasured goods have transformed into places like the Metropolitan Museum of Art and the Smithsonian Institute. Although these museums serve to inspire collectors while paying tribute to their history, the COVID-19 pandemic has put a damper on that practice. It has now been over a year since the novel coronavirus spread across the globe, causing the World Health Organization to declared the beginning of a global pandemic. During this last year, we’ve seen hundreds of people die from the disease and millions more become infected, political turmoil and a presidential election, and various calls to action against racism and police brutality. Everyone’s COVID experience has been different, but there is no debating that the pandemic has completely revolutionized how we understand our society, cultures, and even ourselves.
Exhibition Focus
The focus of this exhibition is on the objects that represent a person’s mental health during the past year. These can be items that a person has acquired during the last year that represent some component of their mental health, or an object that has been a key component in helping them through their ongoing struggle. The items don’t have to be sentimental but should acknowledge a relationship between a person and their mental health.
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