Dark
Lia Dostlieva
Set of collages inspired by abnormal mental states and related comments.
In 2018 I was diagnosed with MDD (major depressive disorder) and my everyday routine and social life have changed significantly since then. Some people turned out to be really supportive, while others kept making discouraging comments or jokes. I talked to my female friends who were also coping with MDD and they described me many similar episodes from their experience. This type of attitude is still widespread in our society and aims to create social pressure towards women’s attempts to speak up about their problems in order to mute them and deny their agency. Thus, not only gender itself but also mental health issues are frequently being used as the reason for manipulating the social image of a specific vulnerable social group.
So I compiled a list of harmful replays and toxic advices given to us by other people along with our own inner comments and doubts. Then I created a set of collages which are mirroring and illustrating these two worlds: the world of “normal” people who are being intolerable and the fragile world of female patients who lack social acceptance. This project aimed to give a voice to women’s experience and make this issue more visible.
Lia Dostlieva (b. 1984, Donetsk, Ukraine) is an artist, cultural anthropologist and essayist. Her primary areas of my research include the issues of trauma, postmemory, commemorative practices, and agency and visibility of vulnerable groups.
As an artist, she works across a wide range of media including photography, installations, textile sculptures, interventions into urban space, etc. since 2012.