TheVITAL Mission
Still image featuring Anthony Otto Nelson, Jr. at Dix Park during the video shoot for “Crisis Materials.” Photo by Julia Wall.
2019 photo by Stacey L. Kirby.
Handprints discovered in the foundation of the original Dorothea Dix Hospital (now the McBryde Building) built in the mid 1800s.
In 2019, Stacey L. Kirby and Michael S. Williams participated in SEEK Raleigh, a public art event at Dorothea Dix Park and the site of the former psychiatric hospital in Raleigh, N.C. A tour of the original Dix Hospital building, untold stories of the patients and laborers in addition to their personal histories with mental health inspired Kirby and Williams to come together to create a new interactive performance and installation. The result is VITAL Health, a community-based project addressing the state of mental illness that also honors the more than 950 souls buried at the Dix Cemetery and surrounding property. The hospital admitted the first patient in 1856 and the cemetery is a reflection of the multilayered history of Dorothea Dix Hospital shared in the Dorothea Dix Park Legacy Committee report.
[Read: Dorothea Dix Park Land Acknowledgement]
During our first set of virtual flower-making workshops in May and June of 2020, we offered COVID-19 mental health coping strategies from Kelsey Evans-Amalu, PhD. In early June we realized the need to pivot the conversation as nationwide social unrest broke out within our communities. In response to the intersection of racial violence and the increasing effects of COVID-19 on Black and Brown communities, we decided to ask other VITAL Health collaborators to take part in our next round of virtual workshops and focus on the effects of past traumas that sometimes manifest through systemic racism. We will also held a virtual premiere and discussion for "Crisis Materials," a short film that features an original poem from Johnny Lee Chapman, III, movement from Anthony Otto Nelson, Jr. and VITAL Health wreaths made by community members. The piece looks at 2020 and all the layers we're all working through as a community, plus gives reverence to the souls buried at Dix Park Cemetery.
VITAL Health is an initiative which includes mental health panel discussions, installations, video screenings, workshops and live performances all aimed at taking the stigma out of mental illness and promoting mental health awareness.
We kicked off VITAL Health in May 2020 to coincide with Mental Illness Awareness Month. Understanding our mental health is VITAL for all of us. No one is alone in their journey. Read these statistics about mental illness and how it can affect us all. Also see these resources from National Alliance on Mental Illness-Wake County.
We hope that you will join us and share your lived experience during our next series of workshops.