katelyn

As I continue on the journey of understanding myself, my exhibition is focused on guiding the audience through the experience of uncovering different aspects of my identity. All my pieces center around the idea of what makes up my identity: my thoughts, feelings, frustrations, experiences, and memories.

With the central theme of “Experience & Journey”, all of my pieces are interactive, purposely made so that the audience is able to experience and understand what it was like for me to uncover these different aspects of myself.

The first piece, “a secret for you and me” marks the beginning of the journey, an overwhelming amount of what seems to be random letters but is infact a coded message. The code represents my memories and thoughts of the past, years, and years of thoughts and emotions that I didn’t understand. Only when I was able to find the key in the present was I able to decode all those memories and thoughts, allowing me to slowly understand myself better. When it is decoded that you are able to continue to the next piece “Sabotaged,” the audience can touch the piece and feel the texture of the embroidery. I didn’t want the audience to only look at the art but to make a physical connection with the artwork. I wanted the audience to be able to feel and see each of the thousand small stitches that make up the embroidery, showing the delicate and the complexity of the situation and the emotions that come with it.

After an introduction to my art pieces through physical touch, “dysthymia” a mask that was made to be worn to feel the weight and uncomfortability of having to go through every day with dysthymia. This transition from something that can be touched to something that can be worn, is to allow the audience to further immerse themselves into my small world. As someone who has struggled with dysthymia for a very long time, I wanted others to be able to feel a fraction of what I and many have to go through every day. “A memoir”, an album that can be picked up and looked through, going through my memories and the thoughts associated with those memories. Creating an illusion and nostalgia of going through an album, however, with a slight twist with the messages and coded messages around the photographs turn it into a photo diary holding my thoughts that can not be seen only in a photograph. Unless you figure out precisely what is written, the audience is none the wiser.

In the exhibition, the piece “a secret for you and me”, is the first thing the audience can see because it represents what was my beginning to understanding myself, and it starts with slowly decoding the messy thoughts in my brain. The exhibition display is centered around creating an experience, “a secret for you and me” may only seem to only be one piece, but in actuality, the other pieces have just been hidden away from plain sight. In the end, hopefully, creating an experience for the audience.