us; complexity of emotions
Year:
2024
Each head represents the complex, multi-layered and dimensions of emotions. They don't depict primary emotions like anger, happiness and sadness. Just imagine how much more complicated it becomes when these heads are stacked on top of each other!
As part of the school project called 'the Autonomous Craft Object', I created these heads that represents the indescribable complexity of emotions.
Did you know that in the UK there is a ministry of loneliness?
We live in a time of an epidemic of loneliness. Loneliness often brings depression into the picture. There are many factors that contribute to depressive symptoms, among them I focused on the correlation between childhood maltreatments; more specifically emotional neglect and adult depression. A general interest combined with personal stories of my closed ones propelled this project.
Emotional neglect from childhood can take many forms. One of them is the lack of understanding how complex emotions can be. Often with kids, emotions are categorised into either good or bad, when in reality emotions are much more multi-dimensional and do not conform to strictly good or bad. This absence of a 'grey area' tells children that if what they are feeling is not obviously 'good', it would be categorised as 'bad'.
Why does it matter?
The continuation of this form of emotional neglect breeds a habit of self-doubt, blocking and non-acceptance of a part of themselves. Making children highly susceptible to develop depressive symptoms in adulthood such as; emotion regulation difficulties, attachment and posttraumatic stress disorder.
These heads that do not represent any obvious expressions hopefully will aid those in the course of understanding and acceptance of their unacknowledged complex emotions.
Click for more process pictures.
