See People
My final semester at university was spent creating See People, which deals with issues surrounding mental health. Mindful that there are many ways of tackling a problem, the resulting artwork explores the irony of creating something about being open-minded, whilst being grounded in the rigid context of present day self-help guides, which reflect heavily upon the importance of the self as a factor in the creation, realisation and resolution of various mental ailments. The title itself is a command, and makes it seem like the ability to see people as they really are is easy, whilst the work itself is not so easy to be read, both in terms of its technical elements (movement necessary in order to view it as a sculptural animation and the digital one being darkly lit), and in terms of how the themes behind it are shown - the animation in an endless cycle of a monster crawling out creepily, becoming a victim and ending up becoming a potential saviour.
And so, questioning whether it is acceptable to view people as one thing or another and then to apply labels, the work wishes to ask you to consider whether you see monsters, victims or potential saviours when you look at people. Or can all three exist in one person?
