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ARTIST STATEMENT:
“Support System critiques the perceived innocence of the mental healthcare system by drawing attention to dynamics of dependence and support, visibility and passing, and the formation of expectations and ideals. The artist’s time within this system and experience living with diagnoses of bipolar i disorder, C-PTSD, ADHD, and social and generalized anxiety inform their work. Without prescribed medications, labor under capitalism is unsustainable yet a job is required in order to afford medication – the psychiatric and pharmaceutical industries are dependent upon this cycle for their sustenance. Masking an illness draws an individual closer to idealized yet expected productivity standards; simultaneously, though, this invisibility of disability normalizes the feasibility of inaccessible ideals which are then established as expectations. It is not that the mentally ill continue to become innately more disabled, but that the capitalist expectation from not only their employers but the mental health industry as a whole to maximize profit decimates their stability and thus induces a greater need for support. As the sculpture is suspended in midair, gravity will inevitably pull its delicate, dangling legs downwards while its idealized corset torso remains laced and tied to its sterile base.”
BIO:
Jules Erdem is a sophomore in Gallatin concentrating in Psychology, Art, and Social Infrastructure with a minor in Disability Studies. They seek to bolster collective mental health through the construction of a robust social infrastructure with the inherent purpose of supporting its people, rather than through the pre-existing mental healthcare industry. They hope to incorporate collective access to the creation, viewing and ownership of art as a form of public art therapy. Art is therapeutic for Jules as a cathartic means of reconciliation with their bipolar i disorder.
Follow their personal Instagram here and art Instagram here.
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