Àngels Vives, president of the FCCSM, explains what motivated the Foundation to promote the 1st Josep Clusa Award.
Why has the CCSM Foundation decided to promote a Josep Clusa Award within the framework of L'Altre Festival?
Dr. Josep Clusa was president of the CCSM Foundation for eight years until his death (2005-2013). Throughout his professional career as a psychiatrist and psychoanalyst, Dr. Clusa advocated in his work for a broad, comprehensive view of what is essential in human beings. And in this environment, conceived for the recovery of dignity and health, he included art, music, visual art, dance, and theater, allowing for the communication of what is essential. With this award, we want to connect the man, the professional, the thinker, the fighter with performing arts and Mental Health.
As the committee chair, can you give us a preview of the criteria that will be used to select the awarded entity and what the award is?
It is understood that all the groups presenting at L'Altre Festival have made a formidable effort to keep their groups vital and creative, and to bring their work to the public. We will value this effort, the conditions under which they have carried out their work, their originality, and the integration of the members in the stage tasks. We will also consider the course of their careers, the years of work, and their future projects.
The Josep Clusa Award comes with 2000 euros and a watercolor painting by artist Manel Anoro, father of the director of L'Altre Festival.
Is Another Festival Necessary?
Absolutely necessary. Now that increasingly, we must question a way of thinking about mental disorder as a biomedical fact with a pharmacological response; L’Altre Festival stands as a space to connect with the most genuine part of being human, which is what saves us. The ability to express the most genuine part of each individual through body, movement, gesture, word, cry, humor, in a common and collective space. This is what makes us recognize each other as humans, beyond any origin, diagnosis, or suffering.
La salut mental es refereix al nostre benestar emocional, psicològic i social. Afecta com pensem, sentim i actuem enfront de la vida. També ajuda a determinar com manejem l'estrès, ens relacionem amb altres persones i prenem decisions. La salut mental és important a totes les etapes de la vida, des de la infància i l'adolescència fins a la vida adulta.
Health has been described as an autonomous, supportive, and joyful way of life (10th Congress of Catalan-Speaking Physicians and Biologists, Perpignan 1976) and by the WHO as a way of harmonizing our reality as bio-psycho-social entities. Pep Clusa liked to add –cultural–.