Can you see me now? – Submission

My assignment is an investigation of the ‘unseen’ notion of being so overwhelmed by life events that you are no longer able to cope with everyday life. It is an exploration of the negative events in my life that have accumulated to the point where I was signed off sick and struggled with day to day life and work.

From my initial list of ideas [1] I developed the idea [2] of how life has led me to this point and how my mental health has been impacted by some of my life experiences. Everybody reacts differently to events in their life and the timing of those events have an impact on how we cope.

I have encapsulated these moments of my life in a series of 8 composite images. All of the images are a photograph within a photograph. It brings together 3 moments in time. 1) The time of the family photograph. 2) The time of the event in my life. 3) The time of producing the composite image.

The passing of time and the nostalgia aspect of the submission can be seen by the use of archive colour slides representing the analogue age and combining that with the use of a DSLR and digital editing tools. This gives the set a feel of delving in to the past, collecting all the negative events together and organising them in to 8 visual frames to support the question… ‘Can you see me now?’.

I photographed a projected slide photo, of myself, which I selected from my parents collection. I then overlaid this with a photograph of a document recording an event in my life. I have placed a final overlay of an enlarged text fragment across the full width of the frame.

I am between the age of 3 and 6 in these images and it shows my life in simpler and untroubled times (c.1968 – 1971). These aren’t presented in any particular age order as the primary decision was to match them with an aspect of the event.

The second layer is the ‘event’. It is a document that places the event to a specific date in the past. The events are in date order and provide the movement of time and convey the build-up of negativity in my life. I have adjusted the opacity to allow just enough of the text to be legible but also to show the materiality of the document.

The third layer is an enlarged fragment of the document that catches the eye and draws the viewer in to the text and the background scene. I have edited the fragment to highlight the texture of the document so the final image is not too flat.

As part of the presentation for submission I have printed on A4 semi gloss paper and produced a sleeve to represent a medical file. My contact sheets [8] show the development and shots taken throughout the project and my decision making process for the compositions and titles.

During development of the idea I researched photographers [3] who used mental health as their subject. I also looked for practitioners using document fragments. The following artists provided me with inspiration and an understanding of appropriation [4]. My final product contains a combination of their features and techniques that results in something personal to me.

Jennifer Pattisons series Edward [5] used objects to convey what it was like growing up with someone with mental health problems.
Mari Mahr’s (b. 1941) A Few Days In Geneva [6] uses layers and document fragments to create dreamlike childhood memories.
Barbara Kruger (b. 1945) [7] used found images and added text in white-on-red Futura Bold Oblique and Helvetica Ultra Condensed fonts.