Awardee: YOLONDA JOHNSON-YOUNG

Primary Artistic Medium: Multidisciplinary

Idea

“No Small Talk” is a computerized, stand-alone, interactive art project (with accompanying website) addressing many mental health challenges faced in society, by all. The project will use a touch screen monitor for a user to select a floating question; this then will awaken a CGI face, which will speak the answer to the question selected.

The installation is approximately 5ft tall, 32in wide, and 2ft deep. The enclosed interactive monitor sits atop a locked 4-wheeled case.

I envision a website companion to the stand-alone interactive art project. Additionally, users of the project can access a website for information to learn more about the project and gain access to mental health professional resources.

The information used to formulate the questions and answers are to be collected from a select group of mental health professionals. Anonymous information collected from user includes age, race, gender, and sexual orientation. The information collected will accomplish two main goals. The first goal in collecting the anonymous data is to ensure the correct questions and answers are loaded for a unique user experience. The second is to help identify and quantify what a particular group may be experiencing and address those societal issues with viable solutions.

The “No Small Talk” project, aimed at de-stigmatizing seeking treatment for mental health challenges will engage the user in a non-threatening way to alleviate the hesitation many people experience while taking ‘seeking help’ under consideration.

The year 2020 has been quite a challenge for many of us. Moving forward, the need to address mental health is going to be paramount to furthering society as a whole.