Description
“According to the World Health Organization, 300 million people around the world have depression. Like many of those people, I felt hopeless, and had no sense of joy; I had a total depletion of confidence, and a generally bleak outlook on life. This photo book became my purpose and dedication to not only get better, but to reconnect with my passion once again.”
Mental illness is an invisible disability. Just because someone is physically capable doesn’t mean they are not going through pain and trauma. This book is a photo journal of the first six months of the artist’s mental health journey during 2015- 2016. This book, its contents and physical production, represents the artist’s internal struggle with perfection, fragility, and transparency. For this series the artist used photography as a method of self-reflection to acknowledge of the imperfections in her surroundings and in herself. Nathalie wanted to create this book to destigamtize the topic of mental health, to hopefully encourage others to seek help.
Included are photographs, anxiety-induced drawings, scans of the artist’s person- al journal at the time, and short, self-soothing notes. The book is approximately 42x60cm in spread, without a distinctive hard or soft cover; forcing the viewer to slowly look through the details of this large, delicate object, much like how one should approach their own mental health. The printing process allows each copy to be slightly unique, keeping with the concept of acceptance of imperfection.
