Utopia in DystopiaThis is a project about mental illness.by Qieer Wang

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I ’ve been trying to keep a tiny utopian stone tightly in my hand while crossing a dark great jungle alone. Until I met my friends Zoey, Johnson, Kevin and Luna. We talk about the red monster, cranky slugs, tornado and my stone. On our way crossing the endless jungle, I start to think about how to share the magic of the stone with my friends.

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Contents

1/5 Intro Statement about author project background

2/5 Info Interview with patient with professional Research

3/5 Inspired books poems animation films

4/5 WIP Therapy Room Dystopia Rooms Playground Install in progress

5/5 Thx

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Qieer Wang comes from Chengdu, China. She ma-

jored in Game Illustration in undergrad school. She went to

grad school in 2014 for pursuing experimental formats of

visual languages. She likes approaching art in different for-

mats, such as working as an illustrator, animator, designer

or a tattooist. She gets inspiration from personal experience

most of the time, and her works are mostly emotion-driven.

1/5 Intro

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In Asia, where I am come from, people are more group-centric

and less individually focused. Being seen as different is a larger

problem than in an individualistic society, and as such, these

people can suffer from conditions of self-abasement and self-

doubt, further perpetuating the discord.

The work shown here endeavors to illustrate my view of these

conditions not as “illnesses”, which perpetuates a negative view,

but as an extremely beautiful energy unique from person to per-

son. The goal is to break down entrenched views and beliefs; to

establish new views and beliefs regarding mental health.

To be more specific, I made four short videos and one animated

film to feature mental disorders, such as anxiety, depression,

manic and paranoia.

Utopia in Dys-topia

The word “Dystopia” is defined as a community or society

that is undesirable or frightening. It is translated as a “not-

good place”, an antonym of utopia. I take this word as another

interpretation of the reality that we are living with right now.

People as individuals might suffer from the dark side of our

own humanity, which might bring stigma and discrimina-

tion in life. “Abnormal” behavior or psychiatric disorders are

often stigmatized, stereotyped, discriminated against, and

threatened by society.

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2/5 Info

q: When did you first feel seriously depressed?

w: It was like ten years ago, when my daughter was in middle school. At the same time my marriage and career were

both going worse.

q: Did you get any proper help or treatment from others?

w: Yes, I try to go to hospital and try to talk with professionals, but I find out that they don’t care about my story even

me as a person. I cried in the hallway after talk with him in the hospital. He gave me prescriptions soon and sent me

home. It makes me feel even more hopeless.

q: Have you ever tried to talk with a friend or family members?

w: Not really, because at that time, I feel ashamed for my situation, if I talk about it with people, they would probably

think it’s my fault of not taking good care of everything. Especially about marriage, it’s such a sensetive topic. We

were taught from the old generation that stick into one man for one life is good quality of being a person, and divorce

is shameful.

Me(q) with Mrs. Wang(w),

Sufferer of long-period of

depression.

Inter-view 1

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q: What made you decide to change this situation?

w: After a moment when I was talking with my little girl in my car. I was trying to keep the truth of divorce away

from her. When I started to talk about the situation with her, she provided me with an unbelievable supports and

courage. I was drowning into my sorrows until she said: Mum, I think you can decide to change another lifestyle in

a way that you want. It was memorable.

q: How would you describe the feelings you had during that period of time in general?

w: I feel hopeless and numb about everything going on around me. It’s like I was been in put into a glass box. I can’t

hear what people are talking about, I can’t sense any joy out there. I’m isolated.

q: What can people who are around you do to make you feel the most comfortable?

w: I think have conversations with people who have no judgement could definetly help. However, those stigmas are

still there. Even for myself.

q: Do you think you are completely over it?

w: I hope so, but no. It’s still somewhere under my skin. It drags me down sometimes even nowadays. It becomes

infrequent and less tricky. Because now I know how to make myself feel better under that situation.

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Me(q) with Karan Kverno(k),

Assistant Professor, Johns

Hopkins School of Nursing.

q: Is everyone vulnerable to a mental disorders?

Although people differ in their genetic vulnerability to mental disorders, anyone who experiences traumatic life

events is vulnerable to anxiety or depressive disorders.

q: What makes people experiemence different levels of mental disorders?

Adverse childhood experiences have been shown to increase vulnerability for adult anxiety and depressive disorders.

Childhood experiences, both positive and negative, have a tremendous impact on future violence victimization and

perpetration, and lifelong health and opportunity. As such, early experiences are an important public health issue.

Much of the foundational research in this area has been referred to as Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACEs). The

disorders differ in terms of their heritability.

q: Is it disrespectful to refer to a mental disorder as an illness?

No. It is not disrespectful. People can be very ill from mental disorders. To the extent that people are distressed or

having difficulty functioning due to psychiatric symptoms, they are ill. We diagnose disorders. The words are used

fairly interchangeably.

Inter-view 2

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q: What are the different medical perspectives?

The Perspectives of Psychiatry refer to four possible causes of mental health problems: Disease Perspective, Dimen-

sional Perspective, Behavior Perspective, and Life Story Perspective. Briefly speaking, from the disease perspective

the etiology of a patient’s troubles is understood as arising from structural or functional pathology within a specific

organ or organ system. The dimensional perspective assumes that, within populations, there is a natural distribution

of both physical and psychological attributes.

The behavior perspective is based on the concept that an individual’s psychological drives, which are shaped partly

by conditioned learning, influence the choice of whether or not to engage in a particular behavior. The life story per-

spective uses the logic of narrative, a sequence of events within a particular setting that leads to a specific outcome,

to understand a patient’s psychiatric presentation

q: If I try to help cure a disorder in a visual way, do you think color or shape matters?

This is something that I don’t know much about. The environment is important. Music influences emotion. The

possible influence of art is something to be examined!

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Prevalence of Mental Illness(NAMI)

Approximately 1 in 5 adults in the U.S.—43.8 million, or 18.5%—experiences mental illness in a given year. Approx-imately 1 in 25 adults in the U.S.—10 million, or 4.2%—experiences a serious mental illness in a given year that sub-stantially interferes with or limits one or more major life activities. Approximately 1 in 5 youth aged 13–18 (21.4%) experiences a severe mental disorder at some point during their life. For children aged 8–15, the estimate is 13%. 1.1% of adults in the U.S. live with schizophrenia. 2.6% of adults in the U.S. live with bipolar disorder. 6.9% of adults in the U.S.—16 million—had at least one major depressive episode in the past year. 18.1% of adults in the U.S. experi-enced an anxiety disorder such as posttraumatic stress disorder, obsessive-compulsive disorder and specific phobias. Among the 20.2 million adults in the U.S. who experienced a substance use disorder, 50.5%—10.2 million adults—had a co-occurring mental illness.

more reference, visit: https://www.nami.org/Learn-More/Mental-Health-By-the-Numbers

R e -search

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3/5 Inspired

While crossing the dark great jungle alone, they encountered me by accident and keep inspir-ing me in a lot of ways.14

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4/5 WIP

I take out my stone towards the sun. And counting scars, marking with hydrangea nec-tar on a dying pine tree.

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- Animation - Therapy Room

- Dystopian Rooms

- Drawing - Playground

- Drawing - Logo

- Claymation Sets

“Uto-pia in D y s -topia”17

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My brain is processing.:)

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T h e r a p y

R o o m

Dialogues happens every moment around us. Informational, nonsense, in-timate, acdemical...etc. However, when it becomes a skill to make a living with, what consequences will be brought to this group of people? What will they searching for releasing their dark side?

“I am a cus-tomer service.”

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“I am very pa-tient while talk-ing with my cus-tomers.”

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“My city is modern and prosperous. I’m proud of it. Because it reminds me of I have opportuni-ties and possibilities all the time.”

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“Even though my life for now give me sudden rages. I feel alive.”

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“I have inner duels almost everyday, but I always know that I can recover soon.”

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“Don’t worry, mum. I am fine.”

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“I found my way of releasing my dark river. I know how to take care of myself. I’m fine.”

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D y s t o p i a

R o o m s

Dystopia rooms are claymation in-spired by four mental disorders: Anx-iety, Depression, Manic, Paranoia.

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A n x i e t y

What Are the Types of Anxiety Disorders?

There are several kinds, including:

Panic disorder. People with this condition have feelings of terror that strike

suddenly and repeatedly with no warning. Other symptoms of a panic at-

tack include sweating, chest pain, palpitations (unusually strong or irregular

heartbeats), and a feeling of choking. It can feel like you’re having a heart

attack or “going crazy.”

Social anxiety disorder. Also called social phobia, this involves overwhelm-

ing worry and self-consciousness about everyday social situations. The worry

often centers on a fear of being judged by others, or behaving in a way that

might cause embarrassment or lead to ridicule.

Specific phobias. These are intense fears of a specific object or situation, such

as heights or flying. The level of fear is usually inappropriate to the situation

and may cause you to avoid common, everyday situations.

Generalized anxiety disorder. This is excessive, unrealistic worry and tension,

even if there’s little or nothing to provoke the anxiety.

I’m featuring anxiety by capturing the subtle move-ment of hands and feet.

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Anxiety

Anxiety

Anxiety

Anxiety

Anx

iety

Anx

iety

Anx

iety

Anx

iety

Anxiety

Anxiety

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D e p r e s s i o n

Types

Depression Types

All depression types are not the same. Learn about the different types of de-

pression, the signs and symptoms, and talk to your doctor about treatment.

Major Depression/ Chronic Depression (Dysthymia)/ Atypical Depression/

Postpartum Depression/ Bipolar Depression (Manic Depression)/ Seasonal

Depression (SAD)/ Psychotic Depression

Based on my interview with a patient, I featured Dysthymia(Chronic Depression) as a circulation.

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M a n i c

Mania often involves sleeplessness, sometimes for days, along with hallucina-

tions, psychosis, grandiose delusions, or paranoid rage. In addition, depres-

sive episodes can be more devastating and harder to treat than in people who

never have manias or hypomanias. Mania is one part of Bipolar Disorder,

another part is depression. Bipolar disorder is a complex disorder that likely

stems from a combination of genetic and non-genetic factors. The mood epi-

sodes associated with it involve clinical depression or mania (extreme elation

and high energy) with periods of normal mood and energy in between epi-

sodes. The severity of mood episodes can range from very mild to extreme,

and they can happen gradually or suddenly within a timeframe of days to

weeks. When discrete mood episodes happen four or more times per year, the

process is called rapid cycling. Rapid cycling should not be confused with very

frequent moment-to-moment changes in mood, which can sometimes occur

in people with bipolar disorder or other conditions such as borderline person-

ality disorder. Along with manic or depressive episodes, patients with bipolar

disorder may have disturbances in thinking. They may also have distortions

of perception and impairment in social functioning.

Other than extreme physical activities, I featured the craziness of the thinking process instead.

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P a r a n o i a

Paranoid personality disorder (PPD) is one of a group of conditions called

“Cluster A” personality disorders which involve odd or eccentric ways of

thinking. People with PPD also suffer from paranoia, an unrelenting mistrust

and suspicion of others, even when there is no reason to be suspicious. This

disorder usually begins by early adulthood and appears to be more common

in men than in women.

People with PPD are always on guard, believing that others are constantly

trying to demean, harm, or threaten them. These generally unfounded beliefs,

as well as their habits of blame and distrust, might interfere with their ability

to form close relationships.

I featured an imaginary ending of a person’s para-noia.

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ParanoiaParan

oiaPar

anoiaParanoiaParanoiaParanoiaParanoia 47

P l a y g r o u d

I try to creat a wonderland combining with a sense of sickness and palyful en-joyment. Trying to catch the mood of emotional moments is such a dramatic process. It’s brutal in one way and sub-tle in the other. Especially when I didn’t provide it with any boundaries but let it grow itself. It make me feel like that I’m not drawing it but the drawing grows itself with the help of my hands instead.

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Day 1.

I n s t a l l i n

p r o g r e s s

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Day 2.

Day 3.

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Logo

Genderless looking is not hoping we can have a gen-derless body but hoping there can be no discrimi-nation between genders.

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After I finished my story about the stone, my friends Zoey, Johnson, Kevin and Luna sank it thought. Until few days later they told me they start collecting materials.

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Claymation sets

Character made out of plasticine.

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5/5 Thx60

Whitney Sherman

Karan Kverno

and al l my crit ique art ists ,

ILP talented peers! : )

Special thanks to

Yuqin Wang

:3

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Zoey, Johnson, Kevin Luna and I are going to different areas of this jungle. We said we’re going to meet up again at the other side of the rainbow.

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Contacts:

www.qieerwang.com

wangqieer@gmail.com

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All rights researved. © Qieer Wang 2016