Perceptions of Depression

Depression is one of the most dominating mental health disorders, around 1 in 6 adults report feeling depressed in the UK alone. It can impact everyday life with feelings of anxiety, numbness, and loneliness, on top of affecting sleep, appetite and energy. Creating this collection of work acted as a therapeutic project for myself to help me illustrate my own previous struggles with depression that have lingered as I have grown. I found myself comparing it to a virus or a parasite in my mind that can flare up as often as the common cold. I wanted to recreate a dark vision of a parasitic worm laying on top of a brain, so combined authenticity with counterfeit by moulding a clay brain and placing it underneath a real earthworm. To establish a set of images, I made this a collaborative project with friends and family with different mental health experiences asking them their individual interpretations of depression, discussing elements such as colour and atmosphere. Eventually leading to the pivotal question, if one could manifest depression into a physical thing, what would it be? Answers varied in detail and developed a range of content inspiration, from animals to weather to more abstract translations, the most common being a dark cloud or fog that looms over them. The purpose of these photographs was to further open up the conversation surrounding this serious disorder, however difficult it may be to encounter, and help destigmatize the attitude that its all in our head. Though we may not physically see it, depression is in fact extremely real.