Overview
As a teenager, Otis Damón faced depression and suicidal thoughts.
Otis grew up in New York City. From the age of five, his father was no longer in the picture. Living with his sisters and a now-single mother, Otis assumed the role of “man of the house”—a responsibility familiar to many boys in fatherless households, but one that can obscure the emotional weight a child is carrying.
During recurrent periods of despair and thoughts of taking his own life, a chance encounter in his school hallway with a teacher changed his trajectory. Mrs. Sibley recognized that something was wrong. She stayed present, offered guidance and eventually taught Otis to sew.
Those lessons opened an unexpected path. Otis developed a passion for hat-making and went on to become an acclaimed milliner whose work has been worn by Alicia Keys, Patti LaBelle, Robin S., DJ Spinderella and others.
His story offers a deeply personal view of mental illness in the life of a young Black man and the difference one person can make by recognizing the signs and responding with care. It also speaks to a continuing crisis. Between 2007 and 2020, the suicide rate among Black youth ages 10–17 rose by 144 percent, the fastest increase among any racial or ethnic youth group in the United States.
In Search of Sanctuary begins there: with what can happen when someone notices.
The Film
In Search of Sanctuary is a narrative documentary about mental health, guidance, recognition and the choices that can alter the course of a life.
For Otis, Mrs. Sibley was the person who noticed. She did more than teach him a skill. She helped him see that another future was possible. But returning to the story decades later revealed something else. Telling his story allowed Otis to reconsider what he had lived through and give it meaning on his own terms. The filmmaking process became as much about authorship and agency as memory.
Otis described the experience this way: “This felt like therapy. Until this point, I have not shared my story in a way where I felt heard. It's always been passive. This process was engaging.” — Otis
That experience also changed the direction of the work. Questions that emerged while making the film—about who gets to tell a story, who interprets it, and what happens when people are given greater ownership over that process—eventually informed the development of Sanctuary, Inceptr's narrative methodology built around cultural grounding, creative expression, participant ownership and authorship.
The film is therefore both Otis's story and the beginning of a larger inquiry into recognition: how we see one another, what we miss, and what becomes possible when people are heard on their own terms.
United States
In Search of Sanctuary
Otis
This felt like therapy. Until this point, I have not shared my story in a way where I felt heard. It's always been passive. This process was engaging.
| Otis
A Global Picture
Otis's experience is rooted in the life of a young Black man in New York City, but the questions it raises cross cultures and borders. One in seven adolescents worldwide experiences a mental disorder, yet most go unrecognized and untreated. Behind that statistic are young people whose distress may be hidden by achievement, responsibility, withdrawal, humor or the expectation that they keep going.
Otis's story is his own. What makes it resonate more broadly is the role recognition played in changing its course. Teachers, mentors, family members, artists and community leaders are often among the people close enough to notice when something has changed. They are not substitutes for mental health professionals, but recognition can be the first step toward connection and appropriate support.
There is also another dimension to Otis's story. Sewing did not merely distract him from pain. It introduced a form through which he could create, build an identity and eventually make a life. More than three decades later, the skill first introduced by Mrs. Sibley became a body of work seen on stages, red carpets and in communities far beyond that school hallway.
Fashion, art and storytelling cannot replace care. But they can give people ways to express what is difficult to say, connect to culture and identity, and imagine possibilities that may not yet be visible.
The Story Continues
The 15-minute In Search of Sanctuary short is not intended to be the final form of this work. Inceptr is exploring a broader global In Search of Sanctuary series, carrying the inquiry into different communities, cultures and lived experiences.
Otis's story itself is also unfinished. The short captures a summary of his life, but there is much more to tell about the person, artist and journey that followed. Director Eric Bomba-Ire and the Inceptr team are exploring the development of a feature-length film about Otis's life, extending beyond the story contained in the short. A separate immersive project is also in exploration, using hats and fashion as an entry point into cultural and religious identity across the African diaspora. Otis's work opens a rich space for examining how what we wear can carry history, faith, status, memory, migration and belonging.
These projects take different forms, but they emerge from the same realization that began with In Search of Sanctuary: a life cannot be reduced to its most difficult moment. For Otis, a story that began with a teacher noticing a struggling teenager did not end with survival. It continued through craft, identity, authorship and a body of work built over decades.
There is still more of that story to tell.
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