resilience

Clive Lee

COVID 19 brings significant impacts on humanity, including sickness, death, isolation, grief and anxiety with over 50 millions infections and 1 million death, Hong Kong citizens also reached a new record low in mental well-being.

As Dr. Amit Sood stated that “resilience is the ability to withstand adversity, bounce back and grow despite life’s downturns”, this Resilience project, rather than focusing on art therapy itself, invites people to donate their narratives of COVID 19 as an artistic subject for study based on philosopher Alain de Botton’s book, “Art as Therapy”, that described the psychological functions of art. The study collects narratives of Hong Kong presidents, CEOs, founders and executives across disciplines by semi-structured qualitative interviews. Data collected would be coded and used for an experience design of an installation of socially engaged art and digital art.

Inspired by the story of Buddha and Kisa Gautami who sought a cure of her died baby but was enlightened after realizing death and suffering was only a part of life, the Resilience project will be a spatial installation of experience design that brings visitors to revisit their experience under COVID 19.

As Dr. Sood explained that any unresolved issue accumulates stress resulting in loss of attention, restlessness and unhappiness, the experience aims at providing an opportunity for visitors to face unresolved issues.

Thanks for singing meditation artist, Ms. Wincy Wong's introduction, a group of buddhists were gathered to reflect on their life values in searching for inner peace and growth as a resilient process. Based on Jon & Missy Butcher's Lifebook personal growth programme, participants studied on beliefs, visions, motivations and plans on twelve dimensions, e.g. health & fitness, intellectual life, character, emotional life, love relationship, spiritual life, career, financial life, parenting, social life, quality of life and life vision for six months together. With wisdoms from Jon & Missy Butcher and an online Lifebook community with 313,966 alumni, the group contributed their best in this once-in-a-lifetime experience.

For more information about Jon & Missy Butcher's Lifebook programme, pls click here.

Desktop research were done on value education, mental health, lifebook, critically engaged arts, art as therapy and happiness in art.

•Botton, Alain De, John Armstrong, and Xinhong Chen. Art as Therapy. Wuhan: Hua zhong ke ji da xue chu ban she, 2019.

•Cheung, Elizabeth. “Hong Kong’s Mental Health Hits New Low in Survey Listing Covid-19 Pandemic and Social Turmoil as Likely Factors.” South China Morning Post, September 9, 2020. https://www.scmp.com/news/hong-kong/health-environment/article/3100907/hong-kongs-mental-health-hits-new-low-survey.

•Coursera. Accessed October 22, 2020. https://www.coursera.org/.

•Butcher, J. (n.d.). Lifebook Online. Retrieved December 07, 2020, from https://www.mindvalley.com/lifebook/online

•Education Bureau, The Government of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region. (2020, June 29). Moral, Civic and National Education. Retrieved December 07, 2020, from https://www.edb.gov.hk/en/curriculum-development/4-key-tasks/moral-civic/index.html

•Kuspit, Donald B., and Lynn Gamwell. Health and Happiness in 20th-Century Avant-Garde Art. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1996.

•Leung, Suzannie. "Socially Engaged Arts: Luke Ching’s Practices for Hong Kong." The International Journal of Social, Political and Community Agendas in the Arts 14 (4) (2019): 25-35. doi:10.18848/2326-9960/CGP/v14i04/25-35.

•Thubten, Anam. Choosing Compassion: How to Be of Benefit in a World that Needs Our Love. Boulder: Shambhala Publications, 2018.

•Thubten, Anam. The Fragrance of Emptiness: A Commentary on Heart Sutra. Richmond: Dharmata Press, 2018.

IDEAS

There are twelve dimensions, e.g. health & fitness, intellectual life, character, emotional life, love relationship, spiritual life, career, financial life, parenting, social life, quality of life and life vision.

Itinerary

The group meets once in a month to discuss two dimension.

Watch guiding videos on beliefs, visions, motivations and plans on one dimension

Discussion

Lunch

Watch guiding videos on beliefs, visions, motivations and plans on another dimension

Discussion

DECISIONS

Physical meetings vs zoom meetings

Vegan diet vs meat-based diet

Home-made vs take-away

Open vs closed

Once in a month vs consecutively

Critically engaged arts is a collaborative and participatory art form that involves people as the medium or material.

This practice is usually associated with activism with political issues.

Artists often dedicate their time in sharing with community to offer help towards a common goal to improve physical or psychological conditions, raise awareness and educate on certain issues, or create a space for discussion.

Lifebook engages young Buddhists in revitalizing their values in this materialistic world. The experience aims at providing a safe space for collective learning about values in 12 dimensions in lives. By sharing the Lifebook, this project hopes to arise awareness about humanistic values and promotes positive values in life.

There are many first time experience in this project:

1) critically engaged arts project: make arts in a process with a group of people and develop an agenda. The process is very interesting as new insights were developed from participants. The interaction and process also creates a safe space for experience, exploration and sharing.

2) once-in-a-lifetime: participants were invited to offer their best to the group by sharing food, hobbies, learnings, happiness and sorrows without barriers.

3) engagement with both online/offline: I was inspired by the online community engagement with 330,000 online lifebook community. I shall apply this concept to my resilience project.

4) facing my own resilience: writing script is one of my worst nightmares. In completion of this project, I decided to handwrite lifebook of 7000 words as a metaphor to overcome my childhood barriers.

5) hypnotic suggestion and mindfulness: in writing the lifebook mindfully, I give myself hypnotic suggestions for keeping values in my subconscious to implement my beliefs, visions, motivations and plans.

While value education seems a missing piece in the society, Clive received a scholarship and is studying value education programme. In completion, Clive and his lifebook community would like to promote positive values in the community through organizing small-group meetings.