In a small living room, a boy in a red baseball cap and green sweater hunches over on the floor with his fingers pressed against the side of his face. The room is unkempt with a tilted painting on the wall and a basket of unfolded laundry occupying a seat. Nearby, a man sits in a brown leather chair, hugging a pillow, his eyes staring blankly at a television before he makes a startling admission.
“Sometimes I feel I shouldn’t be alive,” the man confesses aloud, “like I’m a burden—useless.”
The theatrical living room scene is not real life. Called “Depression Theater,” the staged scenario is depicted by mannequins with the audio coming through hidden speakers. But it may seem familiar to anyone who has experienced depression, or knows someone who has. And while challenging to watch, it aims to spark an important conversation about mental health as a key part of an exhibition that is now open at Carnegie Science Center.
The exhibition, called Mental Health: Mind Matters, seems a radical departure from some of the more lighthearted fare common at science centers and museums. But the need to speak openly about its content has never been more urgent, says Hope Gillespie, museum experiences officer at the Science Center.
“Mental health is something that we should all focus on,” Gillespie says.
According to the latest data from the National Institute of Mental Health, an estimated 21 million adults in the United States had at least one major depressive episode. Depression, however, is just one diagnosis in the expansive realm of mental health. In total, an estimated 1 in 5 adults in America has a mental illness, amounting to 59.3 million people. And yet, only somewhere between a half and two-thirds of those people get treatment.
“It’s a lot about being a person and reminding yourself that you, too, could have these experiences, or that maybe you know somebody who’s had these experiences.”
–Hope Gillespie, museum experiences officer at Carnegie Science Center
On loan from the Science Museum of Minnesota, Mind Matters seeks to bring awareness to the larger picture of mental health through a series of multimedia and interactive exhibits that cover four primary themes: mental health as part of overall health, empathy building, identifying and expressing emotions, and the importance of asking for help (and supporting those who do). The exhibition will be available to visitors as part of general admission.
“It’s a lot about being a person and reminding yourself that you, too, could have these experiences,” Gillespie says, “or that maybe you know somebody who’s had these experiences.”
Empathy Through Discomfort
Gillespie acknowledges that displays throughout Mind Matters might make visitors feel uncomfortable. “That is the point,” she says, “and I think that once you get over that hurdle, the exhibition is able to draw you into things that do hurt, which is important.”
A poignant part of the exhibition aimed at building empathy is “This Is My Story,” which features videos of actual people (and, in some cases, their families) talking about their individual experiences with a wide range of mental illnesses including bipolar disorder, generalized anxiety, post-traumatic stress disorder, and schizophrenia.
The people are filmed, and the viewing area is designed, in a way that invites intimacy between video and viewer. Interviewees speak directly into the camera as if they’re talking to the viewer, who is seated. Gillespie likens it to being on a Zoom call and feeling like it would be rude to walk away as someone is sharing something so personal.
Gillespie recounts seeing one video where a man is describing the internal chaos of simultaneously realizing he was gay and learning he has schizophrenia. “The only thing that I was able to think through that entire moment was he is calmly sitting here, reliving this experience, which was clearly so present to him and has shaped him in such a way,” says Gillepsie, “and he’s able to sit here and talk about it and is doing this in order to educate people.” She felt the same with each subsequent video. “It hits you in a way that’s so personal.”
Mark Dahlager, vice president of museum experiences at the Science Museum of Minnesota, says he appreciates “how willing people were to share their own stories in the context of helping other people make sense of their own health and in the health of the people they love and who are around them.”
Heureka, the Finnish Science Centre, originally developed Mind Matters. The Science Museum of Minnesota adapted it alongside the Minnesota chapter of the National Alliance on Mental Illness to reflect North American perceptions around mental health and mental health treatment systems. The museum also worked with health care providers PrairieCare (a psychiatric care provider) and HealthPartners (a health care provider and insurer) to find people willing to share their personal stories. The updated exhibit debuted in 2018.
Jessica Burke, professor of behavioral and community health sciences in the University of Pittsburgh’s School of Public Health, says that presenting information on mental health through videos and other visual arts humanizes what is otherwise a list of facts and statistics.
“When it’s humanized, and you really put a face to it, you react to those on an emotional level that you don’t for other dissemination or communication tools,” she says. “By presenting it in a way that is more accessible, people are more open to receiving the information. They are curious about what it is, they want to learn a little bit more, and then are more open to it because it’s a personal story.”
Destigmatizing Mental Health
Not everything in Mind Matters is as heavy as “Depression Theater” and “This Is My Story.” Elsewhere in the exhibition, visitors can test their knowledge of common misperceptions about mental illness through a quiz show. There are also toy theater sets that depict how the ways we understand and treat mental illness have changed, and continue to change, over time.
While some of the exhibits are seemingly simple, they all act in concert to destigmatize mental health, Dahlager says.
For a long time, he notes, science museums felt like they couldn’t or shouldn’t talk about subjects that carried as much cultural weight as mental health. They started to find out otherwise through market and visitor research, as well as with successful exhibitions such as RACE: Are We So Different?, hosted by Carnegie Museum of Natural History in 2014.
People look to museums to help them make sense of their world, Dahlager says. “And, increasingly, making sense of your world means tackling some meaty subjects.”
“We believe that it is, in part, our role to create opportunities for discussion on important issues like mental health, social justice, health care, inequality, and climate change that impact all of us.
–Jason Brown, Henry Buhl, Jr., Director of Carnegie Science Center
Carnegie Science Center leaders agree.
“We believe that it is, in part, our role to create opportunities for discussion on important issues like mental health, social justice, health care, inequality, and climate change that impact all of us,” says Jason Brown, Henry Buhl, Jr., Director of Carnegie Science Center.
Opening a conversation about mental health at the Science Center “gives it a stamp of approval and elevates the conversation,” says Burke, of the University of Pittsburgh. “People who might be going there for something completely different may stumble across it and, because it’s interactive, because it’s engaging, will likely learn from it without even going in with that mindset in the first place.”
Most of the exhibition is geared toward children who are 10 and older, Gillespie says. And she acknowledges it may prompt difficult conversations.
“There are kids who are going to be introduced to things that there isn’t necessarily an easy explanation for,” she says.
Still, it’s never too early to start learning, and there are aspects of the exhibition geared toward younger children, too.
One such segment focuses on identifying and expressing emotions. There’s room to dance and paint and act out different feelings. Young visitors can explore their fear of the dark on a large touch screen forest. When they see something scary like glowing eyes, their touch will illuminate the area, revealing not-so-scary cartoon animals. They can also write down their anxieties and then feed the paper through the Worry Shredder. Naming feelings and coping with them are important factors in a child’s mental well-being, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Gillespie encourages adults to allow children to ask questions as they come, rather than trying to front-load them with information they might not want. “Be mindful,” she says, “but also remember that kids are a lot smarter than they seem to be sometimes, so allow them to take it in and then allow them to come to you.”
The exhibition ends on the importance of asking for help and features local resources and other materials for further understanding, including reading lists for visitors of all ages.
Awareness and destigmatization are an important first step, Burke notes. “We have to talk about it before we can do something about it.”
Gillespie hopes that as visitors learn about mental health through Mind Matters, they also come away knowing that help is available.
“If you are having these feelings, if you are experiencing something,” she notes, “there is never a wrong time to ask for help.”
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