MENTAL HEALTH: DEMENTIA, SCHIZOPHRENIA AND TRAUMA
The Centre Cannot Hold
Contributions from: Amy Jolly, Dr Emily Mayhew, Katerina Shatalina, Keith Abraham And Niall Bourke
The Centre Cannot Hold focuses on commonalities between three 'brain illnesses': Dementia, schizophrenia and psychological effects of trauma. The three differ in underlying cause, extent to which they are considered psychological verses biological, and as ‘illness’ verses natural responses to lived experience. Common to each however are perturbations in perception and memory. To convey the commonalities each artist has made three pieces on one ‘illness’ considering elements of distortion, repetition and removal. The artists feel the topics covered are important since the categorisation (between different illnesses, biology vs psychology, illness vs health) are much less clear cut. A very common example in regards to the category of schizophrenia - many people who receive a diagnosis of schizophrenia at one point in time receive diagnoses of bipolar, or schizoaffective disorder at other points, depending on who sees them and how they present on that occasion . Nevertheless, the label given carries significant weight acting how ‘sufferers’ are perceived, understood and treated by themselves, society and the medical community . More generally the classification of a brain disease a biological or psychological determines its conceptualisation, research and hence treatment.
BEHIND THE MAKING
Dementia
Dementia is a difficult disease to view positively, and often people react with alarm to a diagnosis; however, I’d like to use my work to explore the condition in a manner that reflects the realities of living with dementia. The progression and permanence of . dementia can be very scary to those who live with the disease, and to their loved ones; my work is a metaphor for the common symptoms of memory loss, perception distortion and repetition, using abstracted forms which have their origins in real life, echoing the abstract nature of the disease. Dementia is a distinctly personal disease in which each person has their own Picture of Health; the symptoms express themselves most vividly as subtle changes in the person’s engagement with the world, the importance of their connections to home and to the past, and to emotional reactions such as confusion. A person living well with dementia is one who’s condition is understood and is supported in their normal interactions, and is treated not as a collection of symptoms but as a person with identity and agency.
Teresa is addressing the subject of dementia by looking at how the condition affects the memories of the individual. She wanted to make work that was connected with audience whilst retaining an element of abstraction, so she decided to use shapes based on photographs of true forms. She selected these forms to encapsulate a generalised memory of home, a memory that is very relatable for a wide audience. The elements of this general memory being a loved one, a house, a tree, a car and a fence.
Psychological Impacts of Trauma
Rowan Riley chose to focus on the amnesia that can result from trauma. Rosie was particularly interested in learning about the damage that can be caused to astroglia (a class of neural cells) in the brain, and this became the basis for her second piece of work. She found it valuable to hear about the scientists’ impetus for their research, what their work involves, and how it is more often than not in collaboration with a number of practitioners in other fields. A striking point from Dr Mayhew was how the owner of the brain often comes quite far down the list of people consulted in the decisions made about it.
Schizophrenia
Lottie Bolster’s pieces focus on Schizophrenia, owing to the misperceptions and stigma which surround it and those who carry the label. Symbolism uses elements from the live’s of two particular individuals (Elyn Saks, as documented through her memoir The Centre Cannot Hold’ after which the piece is named and to a lesser extend Henry Cockburn as described in ‘Henry’s Demons: Living with Schizophrenia, A Father and Son’s Story’ co-authored by Henry and his Father Patrick) to draw out general concepts on schizophrenia’s influence on memory and perception, and the condition’s perception from the outside. And is also heavily informed by the Nathan Fullers book ‘The heartland ending and loosing Schizophrenia’. All three pieces are based on the image of a tree section, a representation of a life with traumas and fractures, Small fractures emanating straight from the centre indicate vulnerabilities, genetic, in utero or early life events, whilst larger subsequent cracks, from above and on the right can be seen as later triggering events, and/or results of fractures caused by a diagnosis of schizophrenia, be these in terms of life, career, family etc. A large crack down the righthand side of the image appears as a wave threatening to engulf all life underneath. Pieces are variably sized with sizes reflecting the extent to which the ‘symptoms’ represented enter into public discourse and medical research – notably all pieces in the schizophrenia trilogy are smaller than those referring to dementia, the latter being more commonly talked about and researched.
