Written by Tyler Bumgarner (DLSZ 2022), Joanna Camacho (DLSZ 2022), Irish Cristobal (DLSZ 2022), Samantha Peralta (DLSZ 2022), Juliana Pontanilla (DLSZ 2022), Daphne Quimbo (DLSZ 2022) and Emma Rivera (DLSZ 2022)
In today’s society where everything is limited and not all can go out to find inspiration or motivation, we find ourselves stuck in one place not knowing how we can ever find it again. We often look around at the same things and are stuck doing the same routine we have had ever since the lockdown that happened in 2020. All of this leads to some kind of decline in one’s mental health where we find ourselves numb or bored with even the simplest aspects of our daily life. This includes the room we see every day, the school work piled up on our desks, or even the canvas with the littlest dab of paint on it. Our creativity has been stumped by all of this along with our declining mental health, however, we need to remember that there is a solution to every problem.
Eunoia, Greek for “Beautiful Thinking”, is an online art festival that aims to restore young creative’s hearts to be filled with more inspiration and motivation to do in the love of art. This event will tackle youth’s mental health today, and how we, as students, can go forward with an open mind in our art process. Eunoia includes three (3) Capstone Projects: the art webinars entitled, (1) Creative Hearts and the art exhibitions entitled (2) Silakbo, focusing on the Arts & Design Best Practices, and (3) Catharsis, focusing on the processed artworks from the art webinar.
The Creative Hearts was a two-Saturday art webinar held last March 12 & 19, 2022 via Google Meet. Featuring guest speakers were Ms. Angelica Viceral, the current Chairperson of the Design Foundation Department, School of Design and Arts De La Salle-College of Saint Benilde, and Ms. Roxanne Paraguison-Asuque, former faculty member of DLSZ Arts & Design Track and is currently studying MA Art Education. They shared their knowledge and expertise on mental health and arts with selected Br. Rafael Donato FSC Night High School (BRafeNHS) students as participants. The Creative Hearts webinar was all about managing mental health through creative expression that can help participants recognize themselves or their feelings better with arts as an intervention.
Meanwhile, Catharsis is an online art exhibition that features original artworks done by the participants from the Creative Hearts webinar. The exhibit aims to promote art as a healthy coping mechanism for the mental health issues that students may be going through today amidst the pandemic. The title of the exhibition, “Catharsis,” meaning to feel relief from releasing strong negative emotions, is aligned with the main goal of the project as it allows the participants to be able to let go of their struggles through art.
Silakbo is another side of the online exhibition that features original artworks made by the capstone team members. The exhibition’s objectives are to allow the members’ expression and engagement of their best practices in online arts education that occurred throughout the production of Eunoia to be displayed through the medium of art. The two art exhibitions were created and launched through ArtSteps, a platform that allows the creation of art exhibitions to be brought through the online world. Along with the exhibitions and Eunoia, the capstone teams partnered up with valuable sponsors who assisted in raising funds for Eunoia’s beneficiary which is the One La Salle Scholarship Fund. With the support and partnership of organizations and companies, the sponsors managed to successfully aid in the projects’ target funds that will indeed provide assistance to the deserving yet financially-challenged young Filipinos.
Eunoia, not only comprises the three aforementioned capstones, but it will also feature several guest performers, namely Francisco Luis Lumbad (A&D Batch 2022) and Zobel Dance Crew, as well as Mr. Reb Atadero, an actor and a speaker, who will give an inspirational talk on what Eunoia in this time means.
To celebrate and witness the whole Eunoia Art Festival, join us on April 6, 2022, at 4:00 PM via the DLSZ HS SRCC FB page https://www.facebook.com/hssrcc.
