Barriers
White noise plays, like a heart monitor machine, with a dull thud in the background like a heartbeat. A lay is trying to push agains the frosted glass and break free with her hands and face, smearing her red lipstick across the glass. Fast-paced footage of walking through a forest full of leaves is dispersed through this footage like flashbacks. The pace and footing makes it feel like there is a disconnect and we are groggy or under the influence of some kind of substance.
The Void
Soft White Noise. Distorted shadow of a person plays which then intersects with hands opening and closing into fists. Mixture of dark against light confusing the senses. No faces are seen, only hands and the shadow of a head.
Confusion
Screenshot taken from a video where a side profile shot of a man overlaps many times as he spins in a slow circle, to a distorted, soft sound on loop. It's rather minimalist with a very soft focus. Who is this person?
Escape
Black and white, softly shot footage of bound hands is chopped together with a dimly-lit hospital ward with a fish-eye lens giving an idiosyncratic and first person point of view. We are rushing to get out. The sound is of someone thudding against a wall or door in the distance. This one is rather harrowing and hard to watch for me as someone who suffers from PTSD after emergency surgeries, who also wanted to escape. I was trapped in my own mind. This one is incredibly effective because of the hospital ward, the use of the closed off corners, someone banging on the door to get out and the really dark and murky lighting. It isn't pleasant and very uncomfortable. We are bidding for freedom. When we have it, in the form of forest trees, we are spinning in circles and feeling sick.
"Antonia is an UK and international artist, working with moving image and photography. Antonia’s body of work has developed a focus on illustrating and visually interpreting how mental illness ‘feels’ to individuals including herself. Using still, moving imagery and sound, it depicts the affects of chemical changes in the brain, and the phenomenology of mental illness. Her work explores how it feels for particular individuals to be vulnerable and overwhelmed by the world living with a medical condition. It is not about communicating a straightforward message, but rather sharing interpretations of experience of altered mind-states."
'Manifestations of the Mind is an innovative in-depth Arts and Mental Health project, made in partnership with an amazing set of people with ‘Lived Experience’ of Mental Illness. It focusses on exploring ways of communicating how their mental health conditions uniquely affect them and how they actually feel to those who experience them'.
I chose this artist and this work in particular as it is rather different from what I make but a very direct, immediate and effective interpretation of mental health issues. Through music, minimalistic sound, tone and moving image - abstract ideas are communicated with major impact as they are directed at a variety of senses all at once. With abstract expressionist canvas paintings such as I do, oftentimes it is up to the viewer to decide what they can see and pick out and feel. With these videos that Antonia creates, there isn't really a debate because the mood and tone is set through the pace it is shot, the speed of the music, the lighting and so on. It is instantaneous and powerful.
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