A letter to Clair Rees curator of 1001 critical Days Tomorrow;s Child after a discussion over breakfast at The Wolseley 09/01/2017
Dear Clair,
Dear Clair,
an answer to your question "How do you represent mental health with photography?"
There is a danger of me banging the same old drum here for anyone that knows me well but...
There is a danger of me banging the same old drum here for anyone that knows me well but...
The filter through which we as audience view the world and ‘read’ photography is influenced primarily by the aesthetics of the market place as well as an editorial mindset represented by a linear narrative, so when we are presented with work that sits outside of this, it is either rejected or we attempt to pigeon hole the work to subjugate any personal responsibility for the content. So very often work where the parameters of viewing is ‘less normative’* can be misinterpreted as cynical, cruel, humorous, weird, crazy, exploitative or perhaps just bad. Arbus' work is a great example of being completely misunderstood, perhaps even deliberately, by well known writers, critics and curators. But in her exploration of the world, she defined her subjects as ‘aristocratic freaks’ as she attempted to find a tribe to ‘belong’ to, although ultimately she was unable to square the circle of existential loneliness.
'Aristocratic freaks’ feels a little dated in my multicultural mindset, the implication of a freak or queer is that the subject sits outside of normal definitions, so regardless of any positive fashionable spin, it is surrendering to a conservative notion of normal and excludes rather than includes as an act of self harm if we define ourselves in this way. So in the representation of disability but especially of mental health the camera’s brutal realist eye exposes the nature of the illness and how it manipulates the body as it presents itself to society, stripped of any form of romantic and patronising idealism, therefore ironically demanding acceptance from society on the subject's terms!
I have attached two links to two series, one representing physical disability as a triptych of Alan who has Cerebral Palsy and a sequence (inspired by the cool scientific observations of the Muybridge collotype) of a young man with mental health issues in a day centre in the Dombass region of East Ukraine, exercising for the camera.
As i mentioned briefly earlier, the camera can record 'clues' to a subject mindset if we strip away a need to impose an 'opinion' or even sympathy in the pursuit of a subject's representation; persona, dress, body language, the nuance of expression and the state of our environment are all indications of how a unique world has been formed as protection from the 'hell of other people' (sic) and society.
I refuse to accept any sense of failure in this approach, I am convinced and determined by the democratic nature of the New Objectivist approach in the fair representation of all members of society as equal and worthy of celebration and it is connected to the ideas of moral relativism that we touched on this morning over breakfast; that there are some indisputable truths within and beyond our awareness and certainly out of reach of our clumsy attempts to define our existence.
My work now is increasingly focused on images that ambivalently explore our relationship to reality truth rather than present any subject in terms that might arrogantly interpret the lives of others kindly or otherwise. We can never fully know or understand the life of another person and it is the height of hubris to represent our work as truthful. Our works are merely simple childish sketches, like cave paintings; most valuable as representations of our relationship to others and therefore more revealing and autobiographical.
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| Man Exercising for the Camera, Ukraine (from sequence) © Richard Ansett |
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| Alan in his Bedroom Rotating for the Camera (from sequence) © Richard Ansett |
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