art724

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Presentation

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Mentally healing, physically, less so...

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Body of Work

What is it?

Observations:

A collection of diagrams and graphs stating sarcastic and satirical facts, ideas about people, relationships, the world, myself and life.

Healing:

An audio and visual installation that looks at the power of positive affirmations and speech in regards to self love and healing. Looking into a mirror, you hear the sentence 'you are worthy of love' repeated.

No Apologies:

Taking the metaphor 'walking on eggshells' literally, this performance piece begins with me (filmed from above and straight on), trying to live my life and complete usual daily activities with eggshells covering the kitchen floor. Making food, working, doing the washing - all whilst being distracted, effected and hurt by the literal eggshells. Over time, I find different ways of coping (not just avoidance), including metaphorical self exploration (wearing big socks that could be seen as journalling, therapy, meditation - any form of working on yourself and through trauma). Over time , the eggshells become easily defeatable and something to study without emotion, even dance in, over and around.

Why is it?

Observations:

physical representation of data

a way to speak to other people/women with similar experiences

sarcasm helps me cope

explaining difficult situations visually

emotional response

Healing (mirror piece):

after speaking with EM & MJ, the work centres around healing

realisation that healing is/can/should be identity

artistic response to real life events

No Apologies:

Metaphor looking at people causing trauma

response to the way I have dealt with trauma

a lesson and reminder on safe, healthy ways to deal with trauma

a representation of how the hurt changes but stays with us

Plans moving forward?

Physical prints

Self exploration book

Performance piece (choreographed)

Continued work with all three women

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Ty Pawb!!!!!!!

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The first piece on the left is mine!!!!!!

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Interdisciplinary Practice

Within this module, I have taken the holistic approach to research identity through self exploration, specifically focusing on mental health, wellbeing and healing. To do this, I began working with women from a variety of disciplines:

Eleanor Minney, a Mindfulness Based Core Process psychotherapist, who has studied Humanistic and Psychodynamic Counselling and Contemplative (Buddhist) Psychology.

Emma Rees, a professor and researcher of gender studies and feminist theory, and author of 'The Vagina, A Literary and Cultural History.'

Maxine Johns, a qualified nurse and Chinese medicine and acupuncture practitioner, who specialises in holistic and alternative approaches to health.

And a collection of women who regularly attend women's circles, who focus on creating safe spaces for women to feel seen, heard and held.

By working with, meeting with and listening to an array of strong women, in a multitude of fields, I have been able to understand myself, my body , my health and my healing process in a different way. Thinking about my identity as more of a concept than a construct and considering the possibility that so much of identity connects us both to ourselves, each other and our communitues.

I sought these women out for various different reasons, first, Eleanor Minney was someone I wished to work with because of their understanding of trauma, the mind and healing - I felt these ideas would be extremely interesting to incorporate within the project. Working with someone within the field of therapy meant there was a solid understanding of knowing the mind and using this to heal oneself within this work, which to me is such an important part of identity.

Working with someone who studies and researches gender and feminism, both within reality and literature, was extremely important to this project as it gave the academically female perspective. Looking at the feminist movement over the years and seeing how artists and authors have responded to being a woman, and being female, has been an integral part of this process. Whereas attending women's circles and receiving another feminist approach to identity in life has been extremely interesting, especially when comparing this with the more academic side. Incorporating women's circles and more spiritual and tribal ideas has given me a completely different lens.

Working with Maxine and looking at Chinese medicine as a way to support the entire body has also been informative towards the artwork that has been created within this project. Each discipline that I have explored and incorporated into this research into identity, shows how complex and multi layered being identity is. Each discipline focuses on a different area of myself that I feel is key to understanding who I am, from academia to dancing in the woods, exploring my physical health and understanding momentum well-being, I aimed to ensure a holistic approach when the cultivating a project. I have specifically chosen to only work with women as I feel that so much of this male dominated world informs decisions without a female presence. As a woman and feminist, I wanted this work to be and touched by men and arguably the patriarchy web possible. However, based on the world we are living in , all parts of society will influence everyone, whether that be there identity or their art projects.

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Website home page

Throughout my life I have always found the idea of identity absolutely fascinating, how can you be true to yourself if you can't fully understand who you are? And with that thought, how are you meant to make informed decisions about your life, who you would like to be and how you would like to live, without fully considering who and why you are? This is something that I have accidentally studied throughout my adulthood. Through counselling, researching mental health and wellbeing, working with young people who are figuring out who they are, to supporting those in dementia homes who have forgotten. The theme of Identity had unwittingly guided me, until I was able to actively take time exploring the idea throughout my masters.

When begining my MA, I aimed to look at mental health and it's connection to body image, specifically to inform my work with young people. However, the project began to explore the idea of being a woman -taking time to reflect on those before, whilst understanding who we are now.

I looked at the relationship society and the media has with women, the relationship women have with their bodies and body images, and the inequality between genders. Feminism fueled my research while I explored the concept of 'identity' as a whole, through my own eyes. Moving through my research, I stepped further away from myself and looked at women throughout time, who had been lost to history, thinking about their identities and how they have been remembered, or forgotten. I considered changing times, expectations, the media, societal views and tried to encompass all of this into my work. Moving through a multitude of creative outlets; numerous printing methods, felting, life modelling and drawing, painting, photography, digital editing, podcasting, film and mixed media projects, I began to feel my work was overcomplicated whilst saying nothing. This is when I stepped back to re-evaluate and reflect, therefore being able to narrow down ideas and create more meaningful work.

I decided to focus specifically on identity through self exploration, still looking at mental health but through the process of healing and wellbeing. I took time to explore other disciplines that might inform this work and began making connections. Working with women who study feminism in an academic setting to those who create safe, women only spaces, thinking about holistic approaches to health, both through mindfulness based therapy and alternative approaches to medicine.

I've begun researching the effects of looking at what brings me what I feel I need - joy, calm, kindness. Using myself as a case study of sorts, I've begun setting aside time daily to feed my soul and attempt to understand who I am. Spending time creating, reading, listening to music and dancing, being outside, regularly being in or near water, practicing mindfulness, meditation and stillness, being an activist, having active time with animals and making every decision from a 'kindness first' perspective. This module has given me space to reflect on who I am, why I am and how to ensure I fully appreciate and love myself, even if I don't completely understand what 'Identity' means.

Perhaps identity is an integrated representation of everything we think, say, and do. Maybe it is a feeling or instinct. It could be my own perspectives, combined with other people's perspectives or perhaps it's something else entirely.

Before my work was fueled with feminine rage, angry at the world for controlling then forgetting women. Now, my work feels like a love letter to myself, my soul. An invitation to understand and heal, grow and nourish who I was, am and will be. Or it might just be sarcastic graphs and crushed eggshells, I'll leave you to decide.

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Observations

Researching identity through self-exploration; with a focus on mental health and wellness, external relationships and healing, this work encompasses the idea of identity in all forms. From Intrinsic Characteristics and Internal Identity, to Body Image and External Relationships. The artwork in this collection are satirical observations of my own life and experiences, shown through pictorial representations of data.

Originally, these pieces came from my need to get the constant whirring out of my mind, they were a continuous ramble of satirical ideas and thoughts, unable to separate into logic or artwork. I began scrawling the graphs wherever the thoughts came - the back of receipts in the car, in the shower steam, using the notes section of my phone or even once on the wall when I couldn't find a piece of paper. They were the observations of life, relationships, being a woman. When I collected the ideas together I realised they were more than just the ideas to create from, they were the pieces themselves.

Previously, my work has been extremely abstract without a clear link to my research, at least without my explanations, however, these are literal representations of things I believe connect to my identity, and might be relevant to others. I began looking at literal data (of people in different situations who overlap with my own; those with borderline personality disorder, relationships with people who have alcoholism, students and wives and women), I aimed to take this data and create art pieces from it that might both relate to me, and inform others, but instead actually inspired this collection.

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No Apologies

The title is a nod to not receiving apologies when trauma is created, or giving them when you are working towards healing and growth. Despite needing to eat an unfathomable amount of eggs, the process of creating this piece was remarkably healing. Begining with the idiom 'walking on eggshells' I created a performance piece that responded to the idea of creating a safe, happy home, despite trauma and being effected by other people's 'eggehells'.

I will not apologise for stepping on the eggshells you laid down in my home.

Finding the perfect sentence was extremely difficult, considering the feminist perspective and looking at literature and other artists whilst reflecting on counselling and using my own experience and understanding of healing to inform this choice. It is a reminder that we are only in charge of ourselves; our actions and reactions. This piece of work was not about who or what created the eggshells within my life, but an example of how I could respond to them. Not ignore or remove but actively see, sit with and change my relationship to them. This is, for me, the way we heal and go on to live peaceful, kind lives, full of calm. It's not about being perfect, it's about being present.

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Perspective Shifts

At one point during the filming of this performance piece, the angles change slightly so there is a literal perspective shifts. For me, this signifies the relationship with trauma and difficult experiences altering.

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And then one day, your perspective changes. Without realising, you're looking at the same things but your view has shifted. 

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Healing blurb

At different times of my life, I have felt that I am unworthy of love, kindness and happiness. This is, I realise now, absolute nonsense. However, it has taken years of working on myself to truly appreciate how important it is that I love and let myself be loved. For the longest time, my worth was tied up in things that were completely irrelevant to me - thoughts and opinions other people had, perspectives that may or may not have sat within the realms of my reality. I realized that if I was going to live a happy, kind, calm life, I needed to realise that I was in fact worthy of love. Then I need to love myself. Once I had realised that, it was the start of a new journey, retraining my brain and teaching myself to be kind to me and meet my own needs. This installation incorporates one of the most basic and effective ways I began healing myself.

There are times, and will be times, that I will struggle with my mental health, my well-being, my belief that I deserve to live a happy, kind, calm life. That is when I will use tools like this, I hope this installation might provide someone else with the tools to begin that journey of kindness too.

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Website

I've added more information on the website today! Created blurbs for the other work that will be exhibited at Ty Pawb and am going to photograph the work when it's open and add to this page!

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Healing Performance - Final Placement experiments

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This week:

Conversations with ER, EM and MJ re body of work:

Observations (diagrams)

Mirror and sound idea - worthy

Eggs - healing?

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Website - The Identity Project

I've begun building a website to showcase my work that cannot be displayed in the Ty Pawb exhibition. The website will have a home page, about me page and information about the Venns and other diagrams.

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Exhibition plan:

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Emma Rees

Spoke to ER about the venn diagrams - specifically the wording. Thinking about feminist literature and artwork, I wanted to ensure that everything I am writing reads as if written by a feminist, and a woman. We discussed the power of words and language and how this can be used effectively within artwork.

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Another meeting with MJ today.

We worked with acupuncture to relieve some of the tension in my shoulders - Chinese healing believes this can be from holding onto trauma and it is a way to release it.