{"id":102666,"date":"2021-05-10T16:33:49","date_gmt":"2021-05-10T15:33:49","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/mancunion.com\/?p=102666"},"modified":"2021-05-10T16:33:50","modified_gmt":"2021-05-10T15:33:50","slug":"sick-festival-mapping-the-impact-of-lockdown-on-manchesters-mental-health","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mancunion.com\/2021\/05\/10\/sick-festival-mapping-the-impact-of-lockdown-on-manchesters-mental-health\/","title":{"rendered":"SICK! Festival: mapping the impact of lockdown on Manchester’s mental health"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
Returning for it’s ninth year and as relevant as ever, SICK! Festival<\/a> is an international arts programme that aims to get people talking frankly about their health. To this end, the organisers commission artists from across Manchester and beyond to examine how the interactions between individuals and communities affects our physical and mental health. <\/p>\n\n\n\n This year, the festival’s events – workshops, debates and artist interviews – have gone online, while five ‘MINDSCAPES’ artworks are on display both virtually and around Manchester. These include: illustrated maps exploring neighbourhoods from local people’s perspective; an interactive online game simulating the Kafkaesque bureaucracy of Universal Credit; and street poetry displays. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Manchester Mood Drawings are a series of posters displayed at Metrolink stops across Manchester showing intricate maps of communities, combining text with hand-drawn illustrations of local landmarks. They were produced by the Dutch artist Jan Rothuizen, based on ‘virtual tours’ he took via WhatsApp with individual local residents. In a recorded interview<\/a> for the festival website, he describes them as “reportage drawings” or “soft atlases”, which map the subjective, emotional experience of belonging to a place. <\/p>\n\n\n\n“I come from a lonely place”<\/h3>\n\n\n\n