University students turn to the arts in lockdown

BY GRACE GOODA

Victorian university students are almost unanimously turning to the arts to cope with isolation and an increasing toll on mental health, as Melbourne became the most locked down city on the planet.

Research by the Australian Council for the Arts found 98 per cent of Australians engaged with the arts and more than two in three attended an arts event in person in 2019, prior to the pandemic.

In an independent study of Monash University students found 100 per cent of those surveyed had engaged with some form of art, as both viewers and creators, throughout Melbourne’s various lockdown periods. 

The majority of the study's participants said their engagement with the arts provided a sense of freedom through escapism. Many also reported their activities made them feel “happy”, “peaceful” and “validated”. 

“Engaging in art helps me feel as though I am living outside the bounds of my own life – which feels increasingly bleak and restricted during lockdown – and am interacting with the world at large,” one student participant said. 

The results also demonstrated that students have been turning to a wide variety of creative activities such as painting, watching movies, dancing, and a range of other expressions. 

Compared to life outside lockdown, 61.5 per cent of the respondents said they had participated in these artistic activities more than they usually would. Of these students, 88.4 per cent said it simply made them feel “better”.

Qualified Art Psychotherapist and founder of Kaleido Art Therapy Annie Fox, who works in an adult inpatient psychiatric ward, said there was a significant correlation between art and mental health, appealing to creative elements of human nature. 

“I always summarise spirituality as a connection to something bigger than ourselves that we're part of, and art can be seen as a spiritual language,” Ms Fox said. 

“​​Art helps us process and understand life and everything that goes with it.”

Ms Fox said she has observed an increased pull towards creativity throughout the pandemic as people look for more holistic healing and its health benefits.

“It can help with stress, it can help relieve pain, it can make us feel young, improves memory and it can help with brain functionality,” she said.

“We can play in new ways and it makes new pathways in our brain.”

Some students have found they too have reaped the benefits of art as a therapeutic exercise during their time in lockdown. 

Arts and Science student at Monash University Grace Dwyer said her lockdown experience has drawn her to forms of art, like music, to help control stress and maintain her mood. 

“It’s hard to switch your brain off at the moment...but playing guitar or listening to music, there isn’t so much going on,” Ms Dwyer said.

Other students have taken a different approach to their creativity.

Lucy Paterson is a Monash student living with cystic fibrosis who has utilised her artistic pursuits in lockdown to benefit others by commissioning watercolour pieces and selling them. 

Ms Paterson said her pandemic experience has isolated her from a previously social lifestyle and that her commissions have been a way of maintaining some sanity. 

“Before lockdown, I couldn’t go a few days without seeing people,” Ms Paterson said

The watercolour paintings saw an influx in popularity after an Instagram post, and Ms Paterson said creating the commissions has been “pure bliss”. 

“The need for other people to fill me with satisfaction doesn’t exist when I'm doing my art,” she said.

With Melbourne now scheduled to remain in lockdown until the end of October and universities not set to go back to in-person teaching until 2022, it appears likely that the arts will remain a significant feature and coping mechanism of student life.