Dr. Erminia Colucci is Professor of Visual Psychology and Cultural & Global Mental Health in the Department of Psychology at Middlesex University London (UK) and Adjunct Professor at Gadjah Mada University (Indonesia). Erminia has a background in Cultural Psychiatry (PhD), Visual Anthropology (MPhil), Education (PGCert), Data Analysis (PGDip) and Cultural and Community Psychology (BSc and Hons). Her main area of research are human rights and mental health, suicide and suicide prevention, domestic violence against women and children, spirituality and faith-based/traditional healing, and first-hand stories of people with lived-experience of ‘mental illness’ and suicidal behaviour, with a focus on low-middle-income countries, ethnic minorities and refugee populations.

Erminia is passionate about using arts-based and visual methodologies, particularly participatory visual methods and ethnographic film-documentary, in her research, teaching and advocacy activities. Her applied research has influenced policy and practice in several countries, including Indonesia, Australia and the Philippines. Having experienced mental illness and suicidal behaviour in her own family, she is a strong advocate of the involvement of people with lived experience in research and interventions and she develops and provides peer-researchers trainings. She has been a methodology and suicide prevention consultant for organizations such as Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF), the Italian Psychologist Board and Save the Children International.

Erminia is the founder of Movie-ment and Aperture (the first Asia-Pacific Ethnographic Documentary Festival), and Co-chair of the World Association of Cultural Psychiatry SIG on Arts, Mental Health and Human Rights. She is also the founder and co-lead of the Middlesex University Visual and Creative Methods Research Group.

For more info https://www.mdx.ac.uk/about-us/our-people/staff-directory/prof-erminia-colucci/

Watch her research films at https://movie-ment.org