Project leads: Jo Mcintyre, Jen Martin, Nicola McLelland

The Art of Understanding research project worked with young refugees newly arrived in Nottingham to understand how they conceptualise well-being and mental health.  Part of the City As Lab ‘improving the lives of young people’ strand, the project brought together academics from the fields of refugee education, linguistics and cultural heritage, and young people’s mental health.

We worked with young people who attend NEST, a unique educational provision for young people from refugee or asylum-seeking backgrounds newly arrived in Nottingham, before they are ready to join mainstream education. We ran six artist-led workshops, supported by a psychotherapist, where the participants were introduced to different art techniques and the ways in which artists convey emotions and their meaning. The young people were then encouraged to explore different ways of expressing themselves and their feelings and experiences through experimentation with different arts techniques. We also asked them to reflect on ways of conceptualizing mental health and wellbeing in their languages and cultures, allowing us to observe important differences compared to the conceptual frameworks that dominate that discourse of in the UK. We are keen to continue to explore these, in order to better support young people from a range of different backgrounds.

We have built an exhibition of the artwork produced by the young people, which is displayed at the City as Lab space at the University of Nottingham’s Castle Meadow Campus.