The study presented in this article is part of the project‘Finding Viability in Daily Life’. In the project, participantproducedphotographs of situations of well-being were usedin interviews. A knowledge gap was identified: mediaspecificaspects of photographic material used in relatedresearch were not considered. In this study, photographstaken by twelve women aged 27–54 with a stress-relatedillness were examined. The research questions was: Howare situations of well-being visually represented inphotographs produced by the participants in the project,and how are these situations described in words by theparticipants? The results show that a typical photographhad a balanced composition, depicted a closed space withisolated object/s situated close to the beholder, and wastaken from above. Indoor settings were more dominantthan outdoor ones. The outdoor settings showed an openspace and horizontal depictions more often than the indoorones. A typical photograph depicted an activity or objectsrelated to activities. By portraying calm and manageablespaces, the photographs visually suggested that qualitieslike balance and control are important aspects ofexperiencing well-being. These qualities of spaces forexperiencing well-being were confirmed in interviews withthe participants and by previous studies in the project.

I kapitlet diskuteras i emotionella estetiska uttryck i samband med klimatmanifestatoner. Utgångspunkten är den artivistiska gruppen Red Rebel Brigade. Med hjälp av enhetligt estetiskt uttryck, där deltagarna uppträder med långsamma rörelser i röda dräkter och vitsminkade ansikte, vill Red Rebel Brigade skapa emotionell upplevelse av klimatkrisen. Med en bakgrund i mim använder Red Rebel Brigade en ordlös kommunikation för att försöka skapa ett större engagemang än klimatforskningens rapporter lyckats med.  Genom formal- och innehållsanalys av de fotografier och texter som gruppen publicerat på sociala medier framträder ett civilisationskritiskt budskap där naturen får representera ett harmoniskt tillstånd. Red Rebel Brigade intar i sin retorik en suverän moralisk position som blandas med en våldsam retorik. Ur denna framträder bilden av en sluten sekt, som inte verkar ha någon grund i deras faktiska verksamhet. Avslutningsvis diskuteras hur en klimatengagerad konst- och bildvetenskap kan bidra till klimatmobiliseringar genom konstruktiva förslag på hur klimatkrisen kan kommuniceras.

Submitted Abstract:

Climate activism is often a reaction on how authorities and policy makers ignore thethreats from global warming and the sixth mass extinction. Changing this state is crucialfor the survival of humanity and the world, as we know it. This paper examines briefly theintermedial communication used by climate activists under the banners of Fridays for Future (FFF), Red Rebel Brigade (RRB) and Extinction Rebellion (XR). These groups havein common a need to raise awareness about the ongoing environmental crises. This includes a transmediation of the result from climate research to media products that, not onlymake sense to the audience, but also influence and inspire them to take action against theshort-sighted current politics.Through their activities FFF, RRB and XR create different spaces for actions, i.e. a mediaproduction that includes representational and epistemological challenges and considerations. Space is here used as an analytic tool to capture, not only the modalities of the mediainvolved, but also to reflect on the actions these spaces promotes. FFF, RRB and XR usedifferent actions and manifestations – from the sit-ins and demonstrations by FFF, to thechoreographed performances by RRB and XRs playful civil disobedience.This paper is guided by the concepts of semiotic resource and affordance, and by the intermedial and transmedia theories developed by Professor Lars Elleström. The web pagesof FFF, RRB and XR is the point departure for this study. 

This study analyzes the roles of different media for one person who cuts himself. The material consists of images, photographs, and texts that depict and describe this person’s experience with self-cutting and the physical and emotional outcomes of the act. A previous study by the author showed how self-cutting can be a medium that mediates inner chaotic feelings by giving them a physical and visual form. The question for this study is how media can be used by a self-cutter to explore and make sense of the mutilating act. Central to this study is the performative character of harming yourself: how it changes a person’s understanding of themselves and their social status. Previous studies on how self-harmers describe their experiences have often overlooked the formal values of the medium involved and its special qualities. In this analysis, media affordances, that is, what meaning it is possible to express through the medium involved, is an important perspective. This study has a qualitative design: it focuses on one person’s production of images and written texts. The results of the analysis, which involves formal and content analytic methods, reveal different themes that were important for the person involved in the study: cutting made him an outcast from so called normal life but also gave him a new identity in an internet community for self-harmers. Control is a strong theme in the material; self-cutting gave the person involved a sense of control, both physically and socially. The analysis of media affordances shows that the images could mediate the experience of self-cutting better than the texts did. However, written texts provided a greater opportunity to reflect on the act than the images did. This article shows that studies of how self-cutters and self-harmers mediate their experiences are important for nderstanding their behavior.

Background: Stress-related mental health illnesses are increasing in all ages. Be-WellTM is a health-promoting intervention intended for primary healthcare. Be-WellTM involves 12 sessions based on photo-supported conversations. Patients use their mobiles to photograph situations about well-being, and the photos are used as a starting point for dialogues with their therapist. Aim: The aims of this study are to evaluate the feasibility of Be-WellTM, and to compare the outcomes concerning health and well-being in the intervention group with those of a control group. Method: This ongoing study is conducted in Swedish primary healthcare. A total of 70 patients in working age, living with stress-related disorders will be recruited. The intervention group receive the intervention Be-WellTM in addition to care as usual, and the controls only receive care as usual. Prior to and directly after the intervention, and after 6 months, the participants complete questionnaires and take part in qualitative interviews about stress and well-being in their present life-situation and experiences from participating in Be-WellTM. Non-parametric and qualitative analysis will be used. Results: Twenty-nine of 35 participants have been recruited to the intervention and 28 of 35 participants to the control group. We will present the research design and preliminary outcomes from the baseline and follow-up data.Conclusion: If the intervention Be-WellTM is found to be feasible with positive outcomes, the health-promoting intervention Be-WellTM can be useful as a complementary intervention in primary healthcare for patients with stress-related illness. Implications for Caring in a changing world: Probably, photo-supported conversations may promote well-being to other patients in different life situations, but future research is warranted.

Utifrån en studie om Red Rebel Brigades artivistiska framträdanden i samband med klimatdemonstrationer och -aktioner, diskuteras och problematiseras användandet av estetiska och emotionella uttryck i klimatmobiliseringar.

Background: Stress-related illnesses constitute a huge problem in society. The primary care services in Sweden form the first line of care whose role is to coordinate interventions for reducing symptoms, as well as health-promoting interventions. There is lack of knowledge concerning health-promoting interventions for these illnesses. The aim of this study is to evaluate whether photo-supported conversations about well-being (Be Well™) as an intervention, in addition to care as usual within the primary care services, improves health and well-being for patients with stressrelated illnesses. The intervention will be compared to a control group, who receive care as usual. A further aim is to conduct a process evaluation.

Methods/Design: This ongoing project has a quasi-experimental design, using quantitative and qualitative methods, and includes patients from primary care centres in two Swedish counties. Seventy patients, 20–67 years, with stress-related illnesses will be recruited. They constitute an intervention group, which receive the intervention together with care as usual, and a control group, which receive care as usual. The intervention, photo-supported conversations about well-being, involves 12 sessions. Care as usual entails medication, occupational therapy, physiotherapy and/or psychotherapy. Data collection is carried out at baseline, and outcomes are assessed directly after the intervention, as well as six months after completion of the intervention. The outcomes are evaluated based on factors related to health, well-being and everyday occupations. Furthermore, data concerning experiences of wellbeing and perceptions of the intervention will be collected in interviews. The therapists will also be interviewed about their experiences of performing the intervention. Data will be analysed with non-parametric statistics, and qualitative methodology.

Discussion: The project is based on the concept that focusing on well-being despite living with stress-related illness may positively impact health and well-being as well as activity-related aspects, and that photo-supported conversations about well-being can contribute a complement to other treatment and rehabilitation. A strength is the use of a wide range of methods: such as quantitative measures, photographs, and qualitative interviews with participants and therapists. The results will thus provide knowledge about potential effects of this health-promoting intervention.

The material for this study is four YouTube videos that address climate anxiety publishedduring the 2010s and produced by young people. The videos were analysed from an ecocritical perspectiveusing a discourse theoretical framework and focusing on intermedial aspects. All of the videos inform aboutclimate change and suggest activities that will help to reduce it. In the articulation of the climate crisis,the most prominent elements are heat and that the changes are happening very quickly. All of the videosarticulate the fact that “we” caused the crisis. Generally, “we” includes all humanity, but it is sometimesmeant to refer more specifically to people in highly developed countries or people interested in maintainingthe status quo. The articulations of nature include elements such as justice and tranquillity. In a trope thatoften appears in the videos, human litter soils this idealised notion of nature. Cultural behaviours relate tooverconsumption and, in one case, cities as threatening, monstrous machines. The videos also presentalternative cultures and social behaviour in articulations of reaction and action in the face of the threat.Articulations of climate anxiety relate the condition to elements such as hopelessness and the feelingthat it is too late. However, the condition can be cured by inducing hope. Even though the producers agreeon the gravity of the situation, they do not generally include suggestions for radical change in their work.Instead, the message is that doing anything is better than doing nothing – even if the activity does not haveany effect on the climate. Usually, the focus is on individual activities, but some of the videos also focuson organised collective activities, such as demonstrationsor joining a group of like-minded people. Even so, the goalof these proposed activities is often making people withclimate anxiety feel bette

Self-cutting without suicidal intention is commonly understood as a way of coping with intensive and chaotic inner experiences. This chapter explores how inner experiences of chaos can be represented and communicated. Using a semiotic analytic method, three steps for making meaning of chaos, through mediation and transmediation, is sketched out. In the chapter, Elleström’s work on signs, mediation and transmediation, is used in combination with a sociocultural understanding of mediation as an act that creates meaning. The aim is to contribute to the understanding of why people cut themselves and why they continue to do so. Formulating a logic of why individuals cut themselves is an overarching goal in the study. The reasoning takes Tomkins’s notion of affect as an intense inner experience that needs to be articulated as a point of departure – an articulation that, according sociocultural theory, is achieved through mediation and transmediations. Through these processes, knowledge is gained which makes the affective experience manageable. In the analysis, examples are given of how different modes and media, with their particular capacities, can make knowledge possible. The result of the analysis shows how the qualities of basic media, such as text and imagery, give self-cutting meaning on a rudimentary level. But to achieve meaning on a more complex level, transmediation to a qualified medium is needed. In the example presented in the chapter, this medium is an internet-based forum, which appears in a sociocultural setting, in which the act of cutting yourself is made intelligible. The act is here connected to a general notion of mental ill health, of feeling bad – a socially communicable emotion. Hence self-cutting becomes a sign, a semiotic resource, for expressing overwhelming feelings.