Insides: an examination of internal worlds & mental health through art
Porra, Julia (2025)
2025
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Julkaisun pysyvä osoite on
https://urn.fi/URN:NBN:fi:amk-2025121536132
https://urn.fi/URN:NBN:fi:amk-2025121536132
Tiivistelmä
This thesis explores the connection between difficult emotions, including mental health conditions, and art, and how art can help a person work through emotions through creative practice.
The theoretical views of the thesis are grounded in feminist art theory and the concept of abjection, and how they relate to modern society, taboos, and the female experience. The work especially focuses on topics of mental health, anxieties, and how those tie into the modern world, as viewed through personal experiences and perspective.
Furthermore, Insides, a thirteen-piece mixed media art installation, and this thesis focus on the mental health effects of contemporary societies, as interpreted through a critical theoretic lens. Through both the art practice and the theoretical understanding of this work, normal female bodily processes as well as many mental health struggles and illnesses can be viewed as readily shunned and taboo in contemporary societies. However, with art, those can be expressed in a way where these topics can be opened for discussion, and the feelings can be processed in a valuable way.
Insides looks inwards at the motivations for being an artist, and what it is about these subjects that the artwork and artist’s personal life center around. The process led to interviews with two professionals and to hosting two community art workshops. Community art and third spaces were proposed as potential solutions for alleviating modern-world alienation and encouraging bonding through creativity.
Insides will continue its life after the first showing. More pieces will be added to this system which is a surreal mirror to what we all have inside of us – yet also a reflection on, and an expression of, the personal lives and struggles of the artist.
The theoretical views of the thesis are grounded in feminist art theory and the concept of abjection, and how they relate to modern society, taboos, and the female experience. The work especially focuses on topics of mental health, anxieties, and how those tie into the modern world, as viewed through personal experiences and perspective.
Furthermore, Insides, a thirteen-piece mixed media art installation, and this thesis focus on the mental health effects of contemporary societies, as interpreted through a critical theoretic lens. Through both the art practice and the theoretical understanding of this work, normal female bodily processes as well as many mental health struggles and illnesses can be viewed as readily shunned and taboo in contemporary societies. However, with art, those can be expressed in a way where these topics can be opened for discussion, and the feelings can be processed in a valuable way.
Insides looks inwards at the motivations for being an artist, and what it is about these subjects that the artwork and artist’s personal life center around. The process led to interviews with two professionals and to hosting two community art workshops. Community art and third spaces were proposed as potential solutions for alleviating modern-world alienation and encouraging bonding through creativity.
Insides will continue its life after the first showing. More pieces will be added to this system which is a surreal mirror to what we all have inside of us – yet also a reflection on, and an expression of, the personal lives and struggles of the artist.