I need to find a better phrase than ‘mental ill health’. In my previous post I discussed what it might mean to group together artworks created by persons with ‘mental health issues’ and how this might serve to give a voice to a marginalised group. In response Sid Volter has emailed me to point out that in fact this might serve only to homogenise groups of artists in an unproductive way.
“You could argue that by curating a show on mental illness with people showing work that is all bound together under that header, you are picking out a specific quality. Like calling it ‘depression’ in the first place sort of objectifies it. I would be worried about being identified with such a show, if I were seen as ‘a depressed artist’ or ‘an artist who makes work on depression’ because it’s singling out a part of myself for no reason! It’s all me!
What is ‘the mentally ill?’ What is the ‘marginalised underclass?’ Would I want to be grouped under that header? All people under that category would be judged on similar ground using the same frame of reference. What if I don’t want to be judged on similar ground? It’s important from a societal point-of-view to voice things that aren’t said, or talked about. I also know the importance of groups to help understand and identify the problem. I liked your interesting comments on validating and questioning standards of acceptance. But you see the problem when trying to group together into one concept. More interesting, I would suggest, is the idea of curating something that focuses more on the variance of individuality rather than the category itself.”
I think in response to these points I need to make clear how I see the difference between curating a show of successful artists who language their own experiences around ‘mental ill health’ through their practice and curating a show of artworks by individuals who have no previous training as artists and whose ‘mental health’ problems have contributed to their becoming socially or economically marginalised. Although I am concerned with the former rather than the latter, I feel a great imperative that this show should not glamorize or deal carelessly with conditions that can be chronically disabling for some people. Its a statistical fact that a high percentage of people with ‘mental health’ issues in the UK are from the economic migrant community or from disadvantaged backgrounds. I’m pretty sure that they are not marginalized purely because they have mental health issues, but because of a number of social and economic triggers. I won’t be dealing with this issue as part of this exhibition, but it’s important to me that I consider the social and economic background as part of the show’s evolution.
However I emphatically accept Sid’s assertion that ‘mentally ill’ is a too blunt phrase which draws all subtlety out of a complex psychological subject. It strikes me that ‘mental ill health’ belongs to the language of policy makers and pharmaceutical companies and is conducive to reductive arguments that see people as groups rather than individuals.
Better that this show should deal with the complex issue of individual psychologies rather than groups who have ‘illnesses’ and in a way I think that this is what art is for: expressing experience from a personalised perspective.
