Transcript for
Young people and adversity: The Looking Back project – part one
Narrator (00:02): Welcome to the Emerging Minds podcast.
Melinda Hetzel (00:08): Looking Back 2020 was a process resulting in a series of short videos, three to five minutes long, co-created with six young people aged 20 to 27. These young people, Casey, Denna, Jane, Jody, Loz, and Tallulah were invited to look back on a moment or part of their childhood and tell a powerful and empowering story about it. The videos were creatively conceived by each young person and collaboratively realised with the help of artistic mentors and video makers. Largely taking place online during Melbourne lockdowns 2020, the process was co-facilitated by artist Sylv Meltzer and myself, Melinda Hetzel for Artist Made Productions and Emerging Minds.
Casey (00:49): As you get older, you have more freedom and you find people just like you in real life.
Sylv Meltzer (00:59): The Looking Back videos are designed to be a resource to be shown to children who may be experiencing struggles or worries in their lives by health practitioners who work with families or children. It’s our vision that these stories will give ideas, inspiration and hope to these young people. In this podcast, you will hear Min Hetzel and myself, Sylv Meltzer reflecting on the experience of facilitating this process with the six young people. My name is Sylv and I have a background in drama and education. I am a workshop artist, but I have been working in community theatre and collaborative theatre with young people for many, many years now. I am also the creative director of a beautiful nonprofit organisation called the Satellite Foundation, which is how I found myself involved in the Looking Back Project. Satellite works with young people who have a family member, parent or carer with a mental illness and works directly alongside Emerging Minds to create accessible conversations and alternative dialogues as to how to explore experiences and connections with other young people who may relate to their experiences.
Melinda Hetzel (02:18): Hi, I’m Melinda Hetzel or you may hear Sylv refer to me as Min. I’m a director and facilitator and I have an interdisciplinary arts practice based in performance and installation in public space and my background is in theatre. I became involved in the Looking Back Project because I’ve been working for some time on story development workshops for Artist Made Productions and Emerging Minds, facilitating process between professional performers, practitioners and people with lived experience. Also known at Emerging Minds, as child and family partners. Sylv, you work a lot in this space in your work with Satellite and in your other workshop, facilitation. Why do you think the creative process is such a great way for exploring deeply personal experiences, perhaps in comparison to other ways of capturing personal story?
Sylv Meltzer (03:13): I think a creative process offers space for safe exploration of different narratives, but in lots of forms of communication. So, it acknowledges that people express themselves in different ways and that when being offered the chance to explore, how they would feel the most comfortable to use their voice and being told that that’s great, that that platform is exactly what we want them to explore, can actually hold someone to be perhaps, louder or braver or more open in their sharing because they’re not being put directly on the spot or asked a question which says, “You have to answer this.” Which can be what something like an interview process might feel like, where there feels like there might be a right or wrong to the response.
Sylv Meltzer (04:14): Whereas a creative process says to someone, “How about you give it a go? How about you try and share and see how it feels, and then maybe tweak it a little bit this way or that way, depending on how it’s sitting for you?” And with the right people holding space for that exploration, amazing things can happen. And when I say creative process, I mean sometimes non-linear and sometimes without a beginning, middle and end, which I guess is the same as non-linear, but without it being structured by expectation and more of a fluid, personal journey in getting to the place of sharing that story.
Melinda Hetzel (05:01): What is it about the creative process that perhaps lend itself to other forms of exploring lived experience?
Sylv Meltzer (05:08): I have found in spaces where people have been sharing perhaps difficult experiences or tricky conversations around challenging moments in their lives, is that creative spaces celebrate both the quiet and the loud of that sharing.
Melinda Hetzel (05:32): I think we did do a lot of shaping of the process with the young people to try and create a safe space, which involved their participation in what the rules of the engagement were and inputting some supports around it, including only sharing as much as you’re comfortable with. They were an incredibly respectful group of each other and supportive and would really encourage each other in sharing experiences or not and I feel like some of that is the design of the facilitation, which we were very careful or conscious about and some of it is around the creative process. The creative process creates an environment where that’s more likely to happen. The creative process also allows for a degree of distancing from the lived experience, which can at times particularly with the provocation that this had, which was Looking Back on difficult times or challenging times in your childhood, that buffer can help support the safety of that space for these people.
Sylv Meltzer (06:45): I also would add that often creative processes are collaborative and do mean that other people join you in the journey of sharing or exploring or storytelling and the power of sharing your experience with other people or around other people who are also sharing their experiences can also provide a scaffolding and a connection not just to your own story, but in hearing others as well in our beautiful Looking Back group when people shared others listened. And so by the time one of the young people were on their personal journey to create this film that was theirs and from their perspective and from their journey, their lives, they had been heard.
Melinda Hetzel (07:40): We also put in place some things specifically around supporting the emotional wellbeing or mental health of all the people involved and acknowledge that the creative process involves some risk taking and can sometimes result in unexpected and sometimes extreme emotional responses following a process or as part of that process. So, I think it’s worth their acknowledging that we had Lydia at Emerging Minds who could then outside of that process at key moments after we’d had a particular workshop or had the final filmings for example, Lydia could check in with and a conversation or additional supports if they needed. And I feel like that was an important part of the scaffolding we could put around this process that contributed to their safety.
Sylv Meltzer (08:33): Having Lydia at Emerging Minds or if anyone else was embarking on a creative process that did involve working with young people with lived experiences in lots of diverse ways that having a scaffolding around that process is incredibly important. It allows the creativity part to be celebrated and carried and enjoyed while knowing that what is being asked of young people in the fact that they are producing something for the world to watch or listen or look at that they are able to access support if they’re not feeling completely okay within the process itself.
Melinda Hetzel (09:17): And I think it would be ideal for any future processes like this to have two facilitators for us to be able to co-facilitate because then there was the support and the debriefing processes that we could have between us that helped not only plan the next step and contribute to that adaptability and flexibility that was constant in this project, but was also really important for me to have you as a co-parent of the project.
Sylv Meltzer (09:47): Me too. In particular, as we travelled with our young group for a long time, much longer than planned and through many changes and many shifts, both literally within the creative process and the management of the project, but also with individuals and with ourselves and what we were managing in the context of a COVID life as well and so I completely agree.
Melinda Hetzel (10:16): And they were amazing. It was a big ask to stay engaged with a project with people you’d never met for months and months with the hope of finally having this outcome.
Sylv Meltzer (10:27): Min, actually in saying that, could you tell us a little bit about how we set up partnerships with our young people that were part of Looking Back 2020?
Melinda Hetzel (10:35): Yes. So, the participants in Looking Back, I feel would fall very much within the category at Emerging Minds of child and family partners or people we’ve lived experience that is a form of expertise that can be lent to the learning for practitioners and other people working in this space. So, these were partnerships and it was quite important to be clear at the start, what the brief for the project was to recruit often along the lines of relationships, so that we had some context for the people who were participating and perhaps their readiness to be involved in a process like this. And we were able to connect more quickly, particularly online around any supports that they might need. And we had a contract, we had a simple letter of agreement with each person around the length of the video, around the fact that they would be collaboratively creating content with professional video makers and the purpose of where their stories would end up.
Melinda Hetzel (11:40): I think it was really important to be clear about where their stories would end up and how they would be shared and also that they would be paid for their time on the project. So, they would receive a fee and what the structure of that fee was and so in that contract, we are engaging them and valuing their expertise in this collaboration. And that probably leads on really nicely to asking you, would you like to talk a little bit about what co-design looked like on this project and perhaps what the relationship between co-design and what we describe as collaborative artistic practise might be?
Sylv Meltzer (12:17): The tricky part of a co-design term within filmmaking is that there is an element to the process where it gets handed over to the making of the film, which is led by professional filmmakers and needs to fit within a format so that what has been planned becomes achievable. And within our process, the point of true co-design, I would say that we honoured co-design in its fullest in the whole steps of our workshops, our conversations, our meetings and phone calls and check-ins with our group both individually and when we were as a group.
Sylv Meltzer (13:12): And then I think the notion of co-design was challenged at times when it came to the realisation of the production, but it wasn’t forgotten making a film can be a very specific and complex process if you have a radical idea, but we also didn’t want to say no to any ideas. So, we did find ourselves in positions where we wanted to say yes, have that in incredible thing in your film and also how can we do that when we only have one shoot day and a limited budget? And so I would say that the co-design process of the Looking Back Project fitted very neatly into the flexibility and adaptability of the entire process itself and we experimented with ways to bring as many ideas as possible from our group to life in their films in the end.
Melinda Hetzel (14:12): When I think about this process in relation to co-design, I think about it as with any process that we slide up and down that idea of the latter of participation and that at some points, particularly at that early point, when we are generating the material and we are sharing stories when we’re facilitating process that lets these ideas come to light, that there we can work more clearly in a partnership. So, I feel like that level of partnership that often happens in a collaborative artistic process anyway, but that level of partnership then changes as you go along and needs to be negotiated. I actually think it was a big part of that flexibility and adaptation that we had to do was around negotiating the partnership with the young people and where they were comfortable with their level of autonomy and control over the process and where we were comfortable with facilitating that and all the other demands on the project
Sylv Meltzer (15:18): Min, that is actually a great segue into maybe talking about the tension between participant voice and professional makers for a child audience and the importance of bringing artistic mentors into the mix.
Melinda Hetzel (15:33): I think the tension between the young participant voice as the storytellers, and then the professional makers who were realising these stories as videos was actually made particularly tricky by the brief in Looking Back 2020, which as I understand it was different to 2019. So, Looking Back two was specifically for children who were engaged with practitioners and for whom these stories would resonate, perhaps they were going through similar challenging times or something about these stories might resonate for them in their current situation. Key to that process in pretty much every single case of these six individual threads that then went off into their own projects was the artistic mentor. So, in each case we engaged an artistic mentor who usually was specific to a form that young person was wanting to explore in realising their video and that one to one relationship specific to form and carefully chosen for each young person so that there was a fit there was really key to their making process.
Sylv Meltzer (16:46): Beautiful. Min, what have you learned in being part of this process?
Melinda Hetzel (16:51): I have learned that I really enjoy co-facilitating process like this. I’ve learned how important it is to have someone to share this experience particularly when you’re holding it for so long. So actually, I think one of the things that I learned was how creative facilitating this process is and how, how creative your thinking needs to be and I am in awe of the courage and camaraderie and genuine kindness that the young people have shown each other as part of this process and I’m pretty excited about what they’ll do next. How about you Sylv?
Sylv Meltzer (17:35): Well, I second much of what you said if not all of it just then. I have learnt about the power of sticking with it from both our perspectives with this project and our group. I think that we held space for them, but they also held space for us in believing that we needed to keep going and that we were going to make these projects and finish them and celebrate them. I also really acknowledge the courage and the honesty and the vulnerability that existed within their sharings and their processes. I also have learnt and I learn this every time, it’s not a new learning, but it is a learning that constantly fascinates me, that people who don’t know each other, get to know each other through this process and there are quite a few participants who’ve still never met each other in person just to think that we might all meet for a coffee one day in the future and feel very comfortable around one another from this process is a beautiful and wonderful thing.
Melinda Hetzel (18:58): I do think that just connecting back to what you were saying about why use creative process for this storytelling, that there is something about collaborative, creative process that forms connections and deeper connections within a group and often quite quickly and that engaging with that process does change you and I felt that the young people reflected on that change and that perhaps engaging with them over this longer period of time, we got to see some of that and participate in that in ways we wouldn’t have otherwise. And the other thing that I learned about and I noticed this in the other story development workshops that I do with Emerging Minds is how powerful childhood is as a place to revisit and how healing creative process that engages with your own childhood, stories that other people’s childhood can be.
Sylv Meltzer (20:04): Absolutely. I think something that is really important in these processes is to have a really clear brief for participants and for facilitators. I think that if you can start with something that is really clearly defined, then that gives a bit more freedom for creative experimentation as opposed to spending time trying to understand what it is the point of the exploration.
Melinda Hetzel (20:35): And my last reflection would be that I feel like the process was in and of itself an outcome of this project.
Sylv Meltzer (20:46): Definitely. I would say that it was the more important outcome of this project.
Tallulah (20:53): Now that I am older, I know how to explain to people what I feel and I wish I could let the young me know what I know now and I wish I could tell my younger self to keep dancing because I’m good at it.
Narrator (21:13): Visit our website at www.emergingminds.com.au to access a range of resources to assist your practise. Brought to you by the National Workforce Centre for Child Mental Health led by Emerging Minds. The National Workforce Centre for Child Mental Health is funded by the Australian Government Department of Health under the National Support for Child and Youth Mental Health Program.