Studio Brief 02: Can GIFs Dispel stigma?

Can GIF's Dispel the stigma around mental Health Issues? 

Graduate Qieer Wang Reckons so 

How do you Illustrate the complexities of the mind especially mental health symptoms that are so internalized? It's difficult design problem, and one that perhaps explains why many creatives have historically shied away from creating visual depictions of mental Health issues. Bust recent graduate Qieer Wang, who received her Illustration MFA from Maryland Institute College of Art in 2016, might have an answer. 

Wang, who now lives in Brooklyn and works as an independent illustrator, animator and tattoo artist, has combined her interest in the body and in movement in an intriguing study on mental disorders, rendered as a set of GIFs called " Utopia in Dystopia" We're mesmerized by the way her wirey line - drawings explore mental health conditions in seemingly simple animation. 

Wang has turned surrealism to invoke the mind and its darker inner - workings, creating illustrations and that seek to dispel stigma and shine light on isolating sensations. This approach reminds me of illustrator Zoe Emma's 2014 black and white works on depression, and the evocative way she uses faceless characters and doubling in a world of blankness to communicate feelings of seperation and loss. Emma's Works are mysterious and Indirect; but Wang Often draws on the exact wording of symptoms to create her thumbnails for Bi-Polar, a figure is literally ripped into two; Anxiety, a Body fragments and twitches to illustrate relentless body movements and an inability to focus. 

" My list of studies is from a professional mental health group, the National Alliance on Mental Illness," says Wong. " I start every GIF with their explanations." Autism was especially difficult to illustrate - not because the term is abstract, but because symptoms so dramatically vary from person." I watched YouTube video interviews with those with autism and i did several interviews," says Wang, " Thinking mainly about how Autistic people behave and how they interact with others." 

Other GIF's aren't representative of states defined as mental health disorders; instead, they;re issues that involve the mind and self perception, like Cosmetic surgery or self - Identity. " As for those few GIFs that aren't talking about mental health, they're something that i discuss with friends and feels connected with. For self - Identity, the mirror is used to reflect the characters real thoughts."

What's particularly interesting about these projects is the combination of entirely subjective difficulties with medical definitions. " I have personal reasons for choosing some specific subjects," continues Wang. " For the suicide piece for example, i chose a pear for the head because i cut my finger while peeling skin once." 

The GIF's are poetic in places, dream - like in others, yet essentially specific visual descriptors. They're also in a style that is utterly Wang's own: A promising strength for such a recent graduate.