Artist Biography
During the winter of 2020, I was hospitalized at McLean Psychiatric Hospital. Whilst there I found that most, if not all, stereotypes about psychiatric hospitals and patients were completely untrue, and the hospitalization turned out to be one of the most positive experiences I’ve ever had. My project is an interdisciplinary piece within the structure of a play based on my and others’ experience at McLean during the winter of 2020. To create the play I interviewed fellow patients (who have remained anonymous unless given explicit permission), where they shared their experiences and art that they created while hospitalized, and looked through my journals and drawings I kept whilst I was there. Using all of these references, I wrote a play that chronicles the experiences of multiple people being psychiatrically hospitalized, along with creating movement, music, and set pieces for the play. My aim for STU is to reshape perceptions of psychiatric hospitalization and people suffering from mental illness.
Thesis Abstract
The discussion of any type of art, whether it’s painting, acting, dancing, singing, or poetry has often been intertwined with conversations around mental illness. From the stereotype of ‘the suffering artist’ to the perception that all ‘good art’ should come from deep and dark places, there has been a great deal of research into these perceptions and their validity of them within the separate artistic disciplines. However, there has been little to no attempt to compare and draw links between these separate disciplines and their links to mental illness. My research aimed to understand the similarities and differences between the artistic disciplines (visual arts, theater, dance, and music) and their relationships with mental illness in order to create a more well-rounded picture of the role of mental illness in the arts as a whole.