Final Artist Statement 4

When I started on this project, I wanted to create something with several “win states” associated with different personalities. However, I quickly found that that would seem too much like a personality test. So I started exploring some old poetry I was reading about feminist ideology. I started focusing on female mental health and the misconceptions that plague the field. The idea that women have to be saved by men, the idea that a sad woman is a helpless woman, the idea that motherhood fixes depression, the idea that childhood personality completely fades in adulthood. I wanted to create a story that gave people a look into these issues.

The hidden links are a few ways to understand this story. A few of the links center on women killed by their intimate partners (you are her partner in this story.) While other links lead to blogs and websites that address mental health concerns in partnership and the right and wrong ways to deal with it. There are also a few links to feminist poems, poems that talk about the pressures, ideals, and stigmas that women encounter. The poems are honestly my favorite part. I’ve always liked poetry because it weeds out the receptive listeners from the brick walls that have closed themselves off from different points of view. If someone reads a poem with an obvious feminist message behind it, they can either choose to look closer and explore the idea or shut themselves off from it, no harm, no foul. My favorite poem is actually in this art piece- “The Applicant” by Sylvia Plath.