Dear World Project is a cross-disciplinary public engagement collaboration that explores mental health, its diagnosis, and the use of labels often associated with feelings and emotions.

The project has hosted a number of Dear World pop-up events, where scientists sparked conversations with passers-by about their thoughts and feelings towards the use of labels and categorisation in mental health. Using this insight, Dear World Project is pairing artists and researchers to explore the themes uncovered much more deeply in an exhibition in February 2020. The research behind the project is the work of scientists at the Wellcome Centre for Human Neuroimaging and the Max Planck Centre for Computational Psychiatry at UCL, who have been paired with 7 artists and makers to explore the themes of the Dear World Project.

Over the two weeks, Dear World Project will be at Stour Space in Hackney Wick with an exhibition and variety of talks and activities.

The exhibition is a process-focused public engagement project where artists and scientists can learn the merits of each other’s way of working and find a common ground from which to make an engaging piece. The artworks produced will take a multitude of forms and, will by definition, make their concept and message tangible in a participatory and thought-provoking way.