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About the Author

The link between mental health struggles and living a life true to ourselves is often invisible and difficult to see, and the root causes of mental health struggles we experience are often intangible. For six months in 2021, local communities in Singapore participated in a mental health and art movement, known as Masks of Singapore, where they went through a 3-hour introspective self-awareness mask-making workshop, exploring the major four questions of life - "Who am I", "Where do I come from", "What matters to me", "What is my purpose", and expressed these truest aspirations, dreams, and values onto a physical mask. Right after, they were invited to put it on to embody their most authentic version of themselves. 572 photographed portraits of these Singaporeans tell the story of past struggles, present circumstances, and future aspirations of a life that truly matters to them. Underneath the facades you put on, what are your deeper vulnerabilities? Outside your job title, who are you? Without society's definition of success, what is it that truly matters to you?

Masks of Singapore has also set the record for the Largest Display of Mosaic Handmade Masks in the Singapore Book of Records, putting mental wellness in the public spotlight.
Hun Ming Kwang is a highly sought after human catalyst, changemaker, and thought leader. A globally recognised spiritual and inner work teacher, master healer, and professional ICF life coach, he has helped over 10,000 individuals, including C-suite leaders and politicians to transform and attain a higher level of awareness to manifest their purpose. Also an author, a creative director, and a speaker, he has authored 5 books, to date, on the topic of mental health and suicide prevention, and champions humanitarian causes and human transformation. He founded ThisConnect.today, an advocacy platform in Singapore to raise awareness of mental wellness through experiential art and conscious conversations.

ThisConnect.today is a mental health advocacy group that aims to raise awareness and spark more conscious and forwarding conversations on mental health, emotional wellness, and suicide prevention through experiential art. Oftentimes, external expectations about who we should be and how we should act prevent us from being free to express ourselves and do the things that truly matter to us. As a result, many of us end up chasing after societal definitions of success instead of what truly matters to us, and we end up lost, confused, and disconnected from ourselves. It is this disconnection from ourselves that forms the start of the many mental and emotional struggles we face everyday, and it potentially leads to depression, and on a more severe scale, suicide. Through our work, we aim to explore the deeper conversations that underpin the mental health struggles many of us battle in our daily lives and empower people to connect to themselves, to the present, and the world around them. Ultimately, the goal is to see a society where people are free to be bold, be free, and be themselves—unapologetically—so that they can begin to live a life that matters to them.

Follow us at www.linkedin.com/in/mingkwang and www.instagram.com/thisconnect.today.

Authors

Masks of Singapore