Mental Health & the City

Mental Health & the City is a series of public conversations hosted by UnBox Cultural Futures Society as part of Mindscapes Bengaluru in partnership IIHS City Scripts.

The city— in its streets, sidewalks, trees and parks, tower blocks, plazas, squares, bedrooms, balconies and terraces; holds us and all our feelings. This is a series of public conversations that explore how the design of the city shapes the mental health outcomes of citizens. 

May 2022 | Foregrounding Lived Experiences

In this session, we meet with three creative arts, design, and mental health practitioners working in Bengaluru to learn about lived experiences of everyday citizens and how the city causes distress and offers respite at different moments. The discussion will ultimately explore how the design of the city—the public and private realms, shapes the mental health outcomes of citizens.

Panellists -

Varun Kurtkoti, Multi-disciplinary Artist

Padmalatha Ravi, Multi-hyphenated artist and Therapist

Ankit Bhargava, Co-founder, Sensing Local

Rohan Patankar, CRF, Mindscapes Bengaluru (Moderator) 

September 2022 | Women in Focus

Working long hours and caregiving for their families, women* often find themselves erased from the urban experience both within and outside their homes. In this session, we meet with three practitioners who work with women in different parts of Bengaluru to learn about how the design of the city shapes their experiences of safety, purpose, community, and desire, and consequently their mental health outcomes. *Transwomen are women.

Panellists- 

Indu Antony, Mindscapes Bengaluru Artist in Residence

Dr Prabha Chandra, Professor of Psychiatry and head of Perinatal Psychiatry Services, NIMHANS

Dr Neethi P, Researcher, IIHS, and author of Urban Undesirables

Rohan Patankar, CRF, Mindscapes Bengaluru (Moderator) 

February 2022 | Mobility and Access in Focus

The opportunities and serendipitous encounters that the city promises can be the wind beneath our wings, but on some days the city can also make us feel smaller and lesser. In this session, we meet three practitioners from Bengaluru to unpack the role of mobility and access in shaping the mental health outcomes of city dwellers. We will explore the role that physical and social mobility as well as access to public infrastructure and networks play in enabling mental health and well-being.

Panellists-

Namrata Kapoor, Urban Designer and Researcher IIHS

Maitri Gopalakrishna, Drama Therapist and Lead- Conversations in Drama

Prateek Khandelwal, Mobility Evangelist and founder,  RampMyCity and I Break the Barrier

Rohan Patankar, CRF, Mindscapes Bengaluru (Moderator)