A study of how media campaigns could be used to prevent suicide is one of the exhibitions at this year’s Dundee Masters Show.
Emma Gault’s project, part of her master of design course at Duncan of Jordanstone College of Art and Design, saw her train as a suicide intervention officer and create an awareness campaign which, if adopted by the Government or a mental health charity, she believes could help to highlight the problem and bring the topic into the public eye.
During her research, Emma found one of the biggest problems in trying to prevent suicides is a lack of awareness. In response, she sought to examine how design and a high-profile campaign might be used.
Emma (22), from Lenzie, said, “The statistics showing how bad the problem of suicide among young people in Scotland is shocked me. Obviously, this is a very important topic in Dundee at the moment as a lot of people are grieving for the loss of young people and asking questions about why this is happening.
“Road safety campaigns are common, yet we rarely see adverts raising awareness about suicide. It is a major problem in the UK today, but its seriousness is often overlooked as people are afraid to talk about it.
“In this project, I have explored how design can tackle the issue by raising awareness and breaking the taboos surrounding the subject. To fully understand the problem, I trained to be a suicide intervention officer and undertook extensive research, learned the facts about the issue, participated in discussions, took part in roleplays, and interviewed some experts on the subject.
“It’s clear one of the biggest problems is lack of awareness among the public about the facts concerning suicide. For the project I created posters, TV adverts and websites that would help people access information about signs to look out for in loved ones they are worried about, get advice on how to approach them and find places where they can get help.
“It’s a subject I believe should be approached sensitively and not sensationalised, and this is reflected in the designs.”
Emma added, “A lack of awareness is obviously not the only factor influencing suicide rates, but the experts I spoke to told me it definitely contributes and it was one of the things we can do something about.”
More than 50 students from the art college masters courses will be exhibiting at the event, which runs from August 28 to September 4.
For more information, visit www.dundee.ac.uk/djcad/mastersshow