Mental Landscapes: Designing for Depression — A Community Workshop

Fall 2023 Allerton-in-Resident Kelsey Zlevor is hosting a pair of opportunities to be part of a community art project: Mental Landscapes: Designing for Depression — A Community Workshop on Saturday, Nov. 4 (1-3 p.m.) and Thursday, Nov. 9 (6-8 p.m.) in The Studio.

Participants will receive a brief overview of Kelsey’s research, then proceed to a hands-on design activity focused on building representations of memories and spaces where visitors experience ease, observation, affinity for nature and awe at Allerton.

Creations from this workshop will feed directly into a community mapping resource that will highlight routes and spaces for Allerton visitors to prioritize when they visit the park while experiencing depressive symptoms.

Free, but capacity is limited. Register here at least one day before the event.

If you will need disability-related accommodations in order to participate, please email owarren@illinois.edu.

About Kelsey Zlevor

Kelsey Zlevor is a spatial strategist, design researcher, and cultural worker at the convergence of planning, climate justice, and social change. She is the keeper of Mental Landscapes, an on-going body of independent trauma-informed design research and scholarship that centers on depression and psychological disability in public space design.

Zlevor works with park users across the United States and Canada who have a history of depression with a mission of empowering those with psychological disabilities to be trusted narrators of their own experiences, shaping park design that fosters healing and belonging.

She is a Senior Associate at Muse Community + Design, a Chicago-based women-owned planning firm, and a board member of the Association for Community Design, and Women in Planning and Development.

Kelsey holds a master’s of Community and Regional Planning from the University of Oregon, and a B.A. in Environmental Science from the University of Iowa.