Photo-Therapy Day 2019: Jude Wacks

Jude Wacks

London-based photographer, storyteller, campaigner Self-Injury Awareness

Jude Wacks is a London-based photographer, campaigner and mother of 4 daughters who has taken her passion for photography as a way of visually communicating and documenting causes and concerns.In 2017, Wacks went back to University and enrolled in a post graduate diploma photography one-year course at LCC to further expand her photography skills and graduated in 2018.Through the Best Days Of Your Lifeproject, Wacks has raisedawareness of adolescent mental health and the issues they go through, by providing a platform, for open dialogue and education and prevention.Her first two public exhibitions of Best Days Of Your Life during summer 2018, allowed for the first time publiclyin the UK, dialogue of the often taboo topic of self-harm amongst our schoolchildren, to be discussed and explored.At both London’s Old Truman Brewery in the East End and LCC in Elephant & Castle, those visiting were moved by the pictures and stories of what are ordinary looking children in their late teens who have been self-harming for many years and relating their own experiences to the subject matter.

Following this, Wacks is looking to take the photography project further so that more young people and their stories can be documented and is looking to collaborate with relevant organisations and groups in order to expand Best Days Of Your Life, its reach and impact. 

“As a parent of a teenage daughter, who has grappled with mental health issues for a number of years, Ihave experienced first-hand the pain and trauma that self-harm causes to both the sufferer and their families,” Wacks said. 

“Throughout my personal experience and exposure to adolescent mental health issues during secondary school years, I began to realise how wide spread self-harm has become, but yet still very much a taboo. 

Through this project I hope to raise awareness of this and give the silent pain a personal voice.

”Wacks has used her experience of the issue and has become a leading advocate and campaigner for greater awarenessand strivesto challenge the taboo and stigma of self-harm to both sufferer and their families.Through Best Days Of Your Life, Wacks aims to question the wider mental health balance of exposure and awareness. 

“I’m trying to examine the intimate choice of hiding or revealing the invisible pain these teenagers have,” Wacks said. “Throughout this project, Wacks also question the observers’ choice of visual clarity when ‘seeing’ our children and their scarred generation.  

Whether it is our own children or other people’s, how do we perceive, relate to, confront and address this issue?” 

About the lecture:

Jude Wacks will be sharing her insights of how photography as a medium has allowed her to navigate the emotional rollercoaster of adolescence and mental health.

As a parent of a child who self-harmed, photography has provided a way for me to explore outside of my family and learn more which has enabled a cathartic experience and has allowed me to provide my evidence-based knowledgeto relevant local authority and health departments as well as supporting other parents with a listening ear to their pain and confusion.For the children who have been photographed by me, I have provided a medium in which they have the opportunity outside of medical and social services to talk candidly in a non-clinical creative way which allows the children to express and reflect.

Through being introduced to photo therapy while undertaking her Best Days Of Your Life project, Jude has become a strong advocate of using creative arts as an enabler to provide help.

As a professional photographer, Jude will reveal how her skills in talkingand photographing people can also be utilised in situations for individuals to benefit and help towards their personal recovery.