Blog 4

Raquel Braz Da Silva’s final work:

Looking through the final designs of my class, Raquel Braz Da Silva’s project described in her third blog captured my attention the most. She took the theme of Personal Identity related to Social Responsibility and focused on the important topic of psychological wellness. 

Her idea was to transform mental health, an abstract issue that is just visible from the inside, into something of evident positioned right in the middle of the face with a contrasting colour. The pattern of the makeup is deteriorated, underlying the frailness provoked by this illness.

But what I found extremely intelligent in this project was that the pigments could be seen just by the person itself, it symbolized how extremely personal it is and it was important as a reminder for the character itself that our mental health is an issue that we don’t have to omit or it will worsen up. 

I like to believe that the wellness is personified and trapped inside of the mind and the blue and purple colours on the face are caused by it trying to free himself desperately from the inside, but he can’t and ends up just creating bruises.

I would have looked forward to see this project adapted to different people that manifest their mental wellness in different parts of the body, based on which part they consider more sensible or vulnerable, a sort of heel of Achilles.

I think that Raquel’s character well represented the awareness that we should have about this phenomenon that is typical within our generation. Mental health is an issue that many people live with and it’s important that society knowledges that it is real. This project aims to make the character see what is happening to herself and help her realize that she must get help from the start.