ReMO Co-Creation Theatre Action Project

The ReMO COST Action focuses on wellbeing and mental health within academia, a theme of strategic importance for the European Research Area and beyond. We would like to invite our fellow researchers and practitioners to critically think about reporting on Building a Network focused on Researcher Mental Health. How can stakeholders in the research environment develop interventions tackling this challenge in a rapidly changing world? We therefore hope for an inspiring conference with presentations, workshops and keynotes that will not only showcase the newest findings about the cognitive, motivational, and emotional aspects of Researcher Mental Health and Well-being, but will also be a place to discuss the global challenges that shape the present and will define the future of our research workplaces.
In the scope of the agenda of the ReMO Manifesto, the focus was on creating a format that allowed the ReMO Conference 2024 participants to explore together the dilemmas regarding mental health in Academia and how to safeguard the academic dream?
Day 1 - we mapped the dilemma’s by looking back to our present as it is the past.
Collaborative storytelling with conference participants in the auditorium. We looked from a healthy academic future back to the present dilemmas and explored with speculative fiction how we managed to make the transition to a healthy environment.
Day 2 - we created an agency toolkit
Reflecting and sharing personal experiences and formulating needs. Discussions in small groups. Groups got questions to generate conversation and sharing stories. After that each small group gets to create an artwork that represents the conversations that just happened.
Then we hung the posters and had a guided tour in the exhibition like in a museum with a short informal after talk.
Day 3 - we created a time capsule that preserves the academic dream.
Every participant got a postcard to write or draw a message into the future, to preserve the things we cherish about academia and would make us devastated to lose; our privileges but also needs. An act of stepping up for the challenge. To show our agency!
The objectives were executed in collaboration between Petra Ardai, Simone Lackner, the organisation of ReMO and the filmmaking team. Both Petra Ardai and Simone Lackner prepared the production process of the intervention for the ReMO conference 2024. They created the unfolding narrative of the intervention for the event as well as instructed the filmmakers creating the audio-visual documentation of the 3 days. The audio-visual documentation includes: a time-lapse of the process, short interviews and close-ups of participants engaging in the process, statements of both Ardai and Lackner regarding the process outcome. Lackner and Ardai together, facilitated the daily workshops and moderate the final intervention.
This video is based upon work of the ReMO COST Action CA19117 and is supported by COST (European Cooperation in Science and Technology).
remo-network.eu
COST (European Cooperation in Science and Technology) is a funding agency for research and innovation networks. Our Actions help connect research initiatives across Europe and enable scientists to grow their ideas by sharing them with their peers. This boosts their research, career and innovation.
www.cost.eu/