Last week we sat down with Hélène Salsi the coordinator of the Local Mental Health Council (CLSM) of Caluire-et-Cuire, Rillieux and Neuville, and Florence Wagner, representative from the city of Caluire. Nicolas Fieulaine joined us. We talked about what Creative Time Lab does and walked them through the Space of Futurization.
Every October, France runs the Semaines d’Information sur la Santé Mentale (SISM). This year’s theme: the arts. And the CLSM’s current priority is reaching young people, creating spaces where they actually want to show up and participate.
We showed the stations. The glass jars where you vote with beans on how you feel about your personal future vs. the global one. The window where you write what you hope to see 100 years from now. The postcards people send to their future selves.
Since the lockdowns, the numbers on youth mental health in France have gotten significantly worse, and the professionals on the ground don’t always know how to open that conversation. We shared that parents who came through the installation at Terres du Son told us they didn’t know how to talk about the future with their children. But visiting the installation helped them, they found a way.
We’re now looking at what could work for October in the Caluire territory. Maybe the full installation, maybe a few stations, maybe workshops. The format is flexible (it’s been in a festival field, a university classroom, behind room dividers covered in black fabric). What matters is the space it opens.
In our data across countries, we see that when people are given a safe space to name what they feel about the future, the freezing stops. They move from “I can’t think about this” to “maybe there’s one small thing I can do.” And when quite a few people say that, in the same room, a sense of community forms. That’s what we’re trying to bring to Caluire.
The installation will be at Terres du Son in July and in Villeurbanne from September, if you want to come see it with your own eyes. We’ll share more as the October collaboration takes shape.
If you work in mental health prevention, local public health, youth services, or you’re curious about how art and psychology can work together on these questions, reach out.
