Mental Disorders
Understanding visual world
Problem Statement:
Create an artwork that visually describes a Mental Disorder
2023 Selections
Idea Brainstorming
Sketchbook Specs: Do in order
Address the background (1 or 2 page spread, but 2 pages total, 1 for each mental disorder) - Address the background using colors, strokes, techniques related to your mental disorder - (10 points)
Label your sketchbook cleanly by tracing a typeface or writing it with a purpose (5 points)
2. Include an "essential question" and answer. Start with why or how... minimum of 5 sentences each (10 Points)
3. Create a thumbnail for each concept. Label with photographer choices. - Failure to label photo choices will result in zero credit for this portion.
a. Through the eyes of someone who is affected:
Put yourself in the mind of someone who is affected. What will their world look like? (can include people)
b. An environment that showcases the phobia or mental disorder. What does their environment look like? Sarah Hobbs' photography showcases an exaggerated environment for personalities.(cannot include people, environment only)
c. Draw a thumbnail that only uses studio lighting in school
d. Use found materials to showcase what it may be like for someone who is not effected to understand what it may be like to have it. An example of this is Emily's photo of Autism. She utilized duct tape over the mouth and an extreme close up, blurry image to showcase the difficulty it is to communicate clearly.
Student Examples
Exemplar Artists
Sarah Hobbs:
Sarah Hobbs constructs and then photographs uninhabited domestic spaces whose aberrations and excesses illustrate psychological pathologies. In her series of large-scale images taken with a 4 x 5 camera, entitled "small problems in living", benign and familiar settings become overwhelming and threatening, as they might be perceived by a person suffering from paranoia, obsessive compulsive disorder, agoraphobia, anxiety or the type of generalized postmodern neurosis embodied by Woody Allen's comic manifesto, "i can't express anger, I just grow a tumor instead".
Hobbs's work eloquently evokes the psycho-social pressures associated with big city living - she currently lives and works in Atlanta, GA. Her work is especially powerful because of its empathetic treatment of people suffering from irrational fears, whose legacy of alienation from those who are not afflicted is often as painful as the symptoms of the disorder. Though her images are not intended to be self referential, Hobbs writes, "being alone can be very comfortable, but there can also be great discomfort when you are alone with your own psyche. Little neuroses, phobias or the like can have room to grow. Further, at one time or another each of us has probably had the idea that we were the only person in the world with a certain foible, and possibly on a certain level felt that this made us weird or compelled us to keep it a secret. What a relief when we realize that, not only are we not the only one, but that the problem is quite common. Psychology connects us, just as sociology does."
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Shooting
Requirements:
1. Shoot 24 images on 2 separate concepts (see sketchbook requirements)
2. Shoot with film or digital
Contact Sheet
Requirements:
1. Create a new page on your website titled "Mental Disorder" (5 points)
2. Upload 2 separate galleries (1 for each photoshoot) (25 Points)
---- Be sure your images are not cropped (See video here for how to do this)
3. With each gallery, write a blurb about how your photos represent your ideas. Use the sketchbook thumbnails as a guide to how you shot your images. (20 points)
4. Publish your site.
Artist Statement
Requirements:
1. Explain what your Mental Disorder is.
2. Give background info... how does it affect everyday life... how does it affect people that have it, others around it...
3. explain how your image describes this...