Hope and Uncertainty - Poetry and Film

I've begun a new poetry and film project at Chalkhill Education Centre, which is the school within Chalkhill mental health hospital for young people, over the past few weeks. The project was kicked off by poet Rachel Rooney who generated some poetry around the theme of Hope and Uncertainty. I explored the words and sentences generated further and we created an edited list for Rachel to rework and send back. From this tightly formed poem we then generated images in response to the poem and to further ideas around hope and uncertainty using objects, projections and animations. The fourth session was spent beginning to edited the images together (both a paper edit and some editing on my laptop), generating a sound track (thanks to one talented guitar playing participant) as well as making a recording of the poem.

I took the paper edit and recordings of the poem and music away and put it together. Tomorrow I will be showing the finished film "If hope could speak..." to the makers and then to the rest of the school in an informal screening. Christmas is a particularly testing time to be in hospital and I hope the film offers an acknowledgment of the uncertainty there is when struggling with mental health challenges (whether in hospital or not) as well as some real hope for the future...