Mal-Flourishing – who decides?

Mal-Flourishing – who decides? is part of the 'The Ripple - Past, Present, and Future' project, and is a story told on 3 tapestries, the first of which is entitled 'Personal Mal-flourishing – who decides?', and the second and third collectively entitled 'Community Mal-flourishing – who decides?'
'Personal Mal-flourishing – who decides?' was woven to give an example of how data can be ‘read’ and visualised through tapestry, based on artist Rachel Green’s personal lived experience. Using her own life as data Rachel wove the ‘years’ of her life from childhood to now. She used different colours to express different life events, and the completed tapestry shows the ups and downs and challenges that life throws at us as well as periods of calm and growth. Yet, the piece suggests, this weaves a limited view of a person’s life, which led Rachel to question whether we can really synthesize a life like this? Did she flourish? Or could she be considered to be mal-flourished? Are we more than the sum of our parts? And if we are, can we apply this to other sources of data? Do stories of lives and communities told through data become overly reductive?
'Community Mal-flourishing – who decides?' depicts the area of Lochend, Restalrig and Craigentinny, using a statistical point of view and a point of view of those with lived experience and deep connection to the area respectively. One tapestry is woven to visually represent the data that is produced and published through the Scottish Indices of Multiple Deprivation (SIMD), showing how the area of Restalrig, Lochend and Craigentinny has 3 data zones in the top 5% most deprived, 4 in the top 10% most deprived and 8 in the top 20%.
The colours of the tapestry follow the SIMD’s colour coding, in which red hues indicate higher deprivation and blues are at the lesser end of the scale. In the first tapestry red was used to indicate stress and chaos, and this theme inadvertently carries through to SIMD and this tapestry.
Its partner tapestry was co-created by Rachel and a group of community members who designed their interpretation of their community based on their own experiences and priorities, rather than the ‘official’ measures of SIMD. They did not dismiss the more challenging elements of where they live, using black bin bags to represent depression, drabness and neglect in the area, and white bin bags to represent a lack of community and leisure spaces. Despite not shying away from the challenges and deprivations the community faces, this tapestry also weaves a more holistic picture of the area. In it’s fluid and swirling form it captures the human connections and spirit of the community, one which enables people to flourish even with deprivation. This results in a tapestry which contains hope and positivity alongside struggles, contrasting sharply with the SIMD tapestry’s unrelenting bleakness.