Exactly Foundation – Youth in Loop by Alecia Neo

What does “recovery” mean in the context of youth mental health? What conditions and environments are necessary for a young person’s well-being? What loops and barriers prevent us from embracing and receiving care from others?

These were some questions Alecia began with at the start of her photography residency with Exactly Foundation. She examines well-being as a state of mental health and chose to focus on the experience of depression due to its prevalence, both in Singapore and globally, and its intersection with numerous mental health and social-political conditions. Depression can be understood as a state of behavioural shutdown, which often results in challenging and deeply-disabling cycles of avoidance and isolation. Through centring the perspectives of young people on mental health, this project seeks to disrupt the norm of adults setting the rules for engagement: Alecia invited young people to reflect upon the loops they navigate by sharing their own framework of care. Beyond the individual, she also examines larger cultural and societal structures that limit and guide our responses towards mental illness in Singapore.

About Alecia Neo

Alecia Neo is an artist and cultural worker. Her collaborative practice unfolds primarily through installations, lens-based media and participatory workshops that examine modes of radical hospitality and care. She is currently working on Care Index, an ongoing research focused on the indexing and transmission of embodied gestures and movements, which emerge from lived experiences of care labour. She is the co-founder of art collective Brack and Ubah Rumah Residency on Nikoi Island, Bintan. Active since 2014, her ongoing collaborations with disabled artists currently manifests as an arts platform, Unseen Art Initiatives.

About Exactly Foundation

Exactly Foundation is a not-for-profit, trademarked registered label established by Li Li Chung to commission photographers to create works that stimulate discussion of social concerns in Singapore. Its goal is to produce new knowledge by having viewers engage with the photographs and share them with friends and family over a 2-3 month period.