Meet The Filmmakers - Sarah Ticho
Soul Paint
We talked to creator producer and director, Sarah Ticho about her journey creating the profound Soul Paint.
Session located at the TAFE Connected Learning Centre
Friday 25 October
Limited tickets available.
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As we approach the Byron Bay Film Festival 2024, excitement builds for the premiere of Soul Paint, a groundbreaking experience blending immersive technology, creative storytelling, and wellbeing. Through bodymapping, 3D drawing, and movement, participants explore and express emotions and sensations in the body, revealing their inner reality while observing others' creations. Narrated by actor and activist Rosario Dawson, Soul Paint has won awards including Unity for Humanity, StoryFutures XR Connect, and SXSW’s Special Jury Prize.
How did you come to create and discover the story in of this VR Experience? Was there someone who inspired you or something you experienced that sparked the idea?
My journey with grief and mental health challenges has profoundly shaped who I am and what I create. After losing my father, I felt isolated and unheard. I ended up experiencing a psychotic episode and whilst navigating the healthcare system felt failed by healthcare professionals who were focussed more on a medication approach than a human centred one. It was incredibly frustrating to feel as though my pain wasn’t fully understood or validated.
These experiences pushed me to find alternative ways to express my emotions and process my grief. I discovered body mapping whilst living in Sydney, and knew that the fusion of this artistic approach with immersive technology could deeply enhance the experience and create a powerful new creative outlets for emotional healing. This realisation inspired me to create "Soul Paint." I wanted to provide a space where others could express themselves freely and feel seen.
Through this project, I hope to help people navigate their own struggles with the complex interplay of physical and mental health, offering a compassionate alternative to traditional support systems.”
Have you always wanted to be a creator? What path lead you to storytelling?
I wanted to be anthropologist, and believe I still am. Interactive storytelling is a powerful new way to create moments and experiences that connect people, and through using interactive technology we create agency and two way conversations that enable us to learn about ourselves and each other.
Can you tell us a bit about this VR Journey and what inspired you to create it?
SOUL PAINT exists at the nexus of immersive technology, creative storytelling and wellbeing to explore the richness of the embodied human experience. Participants are taken on a journey to explore and creatively express feelings of emotion and sensations in the body. Through the process of bodymapping, 3D drawing and movement, they are invited to reveal their unique inner reality and then observe the creations of others. Using interactive technology in a genre-pushing way, this experience encourages new forms of embodied insight, allowing us to reflect on the diversity of human experience on an individual and global level.
The tagline for BBFF2024 is ‘Visions in Motion’. How does your VR Experience align with this theme, if at all?
We are creating visions of our hidden inner worlds - our emotions, our feelings and sensations visualised and animated to create a new lens on our internal experience. We see ourselves changing over time.
What message or emotions do you hope your experience conveys to the audience?
There is a hidden world of feeling hidden behind us all, yet our language and biases often can hide that. Through seeing ourselves and each other in a new light we can have a new form of self compassion that can make the world a better place, and help us discover new things about ourselves. Soul Paint suggests that art can be a medium for exploring and communicating one's inner self, allowing for personal growth and reflection. The idea is that creative expression can reveal the complexities of the human experience, providing a sense of catharsis and connection to others. Overall, it emphasises the transformative power of art in understanding and embracing our true selves.
Collaborative efforts often play a significant role in filmmaking. Could you share some insights into the teamwork and collaborations that contributed to the success of this incredible VR journey?
Our team is a series of scientists, behavioural psychologists, researchers, game designers and people with lived experience of mental health collaborated on this project over years. Rosario Dawson came on board following being a judge on Unity for Humanity.
Have you got any connections to Byron Bay? If not have you got any pre-conceptions about Byron?
Only through J'aimee but that is it!
Why did you want to be part of BBFF2024?
Because I love the curator, and serendipity brought me to Australia around this time!
What advice would you offer to aspiring Filmmakers to help them get their films recognised and selected by festivals like BBFF?
Think creatively, find you're team, learn to budget!
"Film festivals often provide opportunities for filmmakers to connect with their audience directly. What are you most looking forward to in terms of audience reactions and engagement during your screening at BBFF, and how do you think this interaction can enhance your filmmaking experience?
I'm excited to see what people create and how Australian stories and perspectives may differ to other places we've seen around the world.
Is there anything else you'd like to share?
Body-mapping was originally developed as an arts-therapy technique to convey the lived experience of women with HIV in South Africa. It involves tracing the form of an individual’s body and filling in the outline with images and text that portray an individual’s unique journey including social, emotional, somatic, and sensory experiences. Early studies showed the potential of body-mapping as a means of exploring one’s own emotions and identity as well as the lived experience of others, thereby reducing stigma, and improving health literacy (MacGregor, 2008; Solomon, 2002). Body-mapping has since been further developed and used as a method in research, clinical and non-clinical settings to visualize and externalize ordinarily subjective and internal experiences (Boydell, K (Ed.), 2020; de Jager et al. 2016).
Soul paint combines traditional body-mapping with the immersive power of virtual reality to:
Explore and gain awareness of how our feelings and experiences manifest in our body
Reflect on and possibly transform how we view and experience certain feelings
Express and communicate feelings in an embodied and creative way
Foster empathy and social connectedness through witnessing the lived experience of others
Over the past few years, extensive research has been done with Soul Paint at festivals, arts centres, schools, care institutions, and libraries with hundreds of participants with various ages and backgrounds including healthcare practitioners.
Documentary filmmaking often involves in-depth research and a commitment to shedding light on important issues. Can you share the catalyst that inspired you to create your documentary and what impact do you hope it will have on viewers?
My own lived experience of mental health, and discovering body mapping as a tool to express embodied experience.
The power of documentaries lies in their ability to inform, educate and inspire change. Can you discuss any real-world impact or responses your previous documentary work has generated, and do you anticipate a similar effect with this journey?
"We have generated and continue to generate research on its impact. Key themes on impact include its use in: Interoceptive awareness, Embodiment , Reflection and (re-)appraisal, emotional expression and communication, Connectedness and empathy, Cross-cultural differences.
Interview with some participant, Sarah Hill
I found the Soul Paint to be extremely moving on a personal level. My mother-in-law had lived with us for nearly a decade and a few months ago, she fell in our kitchen right in front of me and suffered a severe head injury. After a week in the ICU, she died a short time later. I've held onto that memory of her falling in our kitchen. In the Soul Paint experience, there is a moment where you step inside yourself and embody your feelings, soak them up, and then shake your arms and legs to shake them off. Seeing all of that grief that I had been holding on to for the last few months and then seeing it fall off my body and fall to the floor was a powerful metaphor for healing for me. For anyone who's lost a loved one, I'd highly recommend they go do Soul Paint. I had tears streaming down my face afterward. I didn't realise what I had been holding onto and how those feelings did not serve me.
