Image of mental disorders

IMAGE OF MENTAL DISORDERS

The project originates from my co-operation with the FOKUS LABE organization, which supports people with mental disorders. The images are based on utterances of their clients. The collection includes two images named Schizophrenia and I present the photographs without any text attached. The project’s aim is not to support people with mental disorders or to point out that some people are in a worse situation than we are. However, they can imply that the “imaginary boundary” between reality and delusion is very fragile and anyone can go beyond it easily.

Robert:

… While watching the evening news he started to see an agent in the form of the presenter. The agent subliminally asked him questions that Robert was supposed to answer and send the response to the seat

of the president of the United States of America, the White House, as soon as possible. The situation was

so tense that they were only waiting for Robert’s decision. Robert was supposed to decide whether the USA should begin to invade Iraq and bring down the regime of Saddam Hussein (The US army was ready for command/decision). Even though he didn’t want to be responsible for such a serious problem and didn’t want to react to the escalated situation, the agent kept pushing him psychologically more and more.

For example, he made Robert bring his respond in an envelope to a particular place in a specific time (midnight). Naturally, nobody was there at the given time. That made Robert’s condition even worse.

The other day he came to know from TV news and newspapers that the USA decided to invade and Robert considered it his own failure. However, the agent still kept setting him tasks. Thanks to an improvement

of his condition, Robert was forgetting about the tasks or didn’t want to think about them until his delusions disappeared completely.

Jitka:

…She is often depressed, has social phobia and is afraid of lack of understanding from people around her.
She sees ghosts and often sees Jim Morrison, who is her idol. She claims that she speaks with him every night before she goes to sleep and that they pray together. He sometimes leaves a flower on her table.

The most intense experiences were those with her mother, who often urged her to become independent.

For example, she took a carpet away from Jitka’s room, because she wanted Jitka to realize that she should buy her own one. She used a similar method with dirty bedclothes, which she hid under Jitka’s bed. Jitka didn’t get a new carpet and intentionally ignored the dirty clothes for about ten years. Later on, at the age of eighteen, she decided to run away from home.

Backstage

Thanks for the support / assistance:
Milan Kutina, Adéla Hůlková, Michal Kukačka, Adéla Waldhauserová, Jan Hřebíček, Lenka Bukačová, Jirka Traier, Lukáš zavřel, Iva Polanecká