Undergraduate Thesis - Stamps School of Art & Design

April 2016

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Everyone wants the solution to depression to be simple. But it's not. It can't be when those experiencing depression don't vocalize even a fifth of what they're thinking. How can somebody make someone feel better when they don't even know how they really feel? Through a series of three books, "You need to get out more." dissects the desire people with depression have to conceal an exponential amount of emotions and thoughts.

 

My initial goal with this project was to say something about depression more generally as a topic overall. I feared that if this project became more about me specifically, it would not be relevant to enough people. It is because of this that throughout the course of the project, I always strived to keep my identity out of the content by keeping my writing as ambiguous as possible. Even though I worked effortlessly to achieve this amorphic narrator, I neglected to realize that the average person would naturally read a first-person narrative as a reflection of the writer. At Work Gallery’s opening reception I had coworkers, friends, and acquaintances mention to me that I am, “so strong and so brave” or that they, “had no idea because [you] always seem so positive.” It was after these occurrences that I realized I did not need my artist statement or my content to explicitly say, “Christina has depression, these books are about Christina’s depression,” for the books to reveal the truth about my depression. My viewers put the pieces together themselves using the context clues I left throughout the books; actually mimicking the communication that happens in my second book, “Everyone has those days.” At first, I cared deeply about this, as I worried that everyone was too focused on realizing that I have depression and it was now a personal piece. Shortly after this though, I realized that it did not matter. It did not matter that it was about me and my depression. It did not matter that people fixated on realizing that I was battling depression. What mattered was that the project became relevant for these people through realizing that I had depression. This action communicated that depression can be found in any size, shape, or form (even if they appear upbeat and happy); which is above all else what I wanted to express through my piece.             

 

All work done with the assistance of Hannah Smotrich and Stephanie Rowden for the BFA Senior Thesis Integrative Project course at the Stamps School of Art & Design.