Wounded not conquered
Courier Mail Media release
Deborah Marshall, Griffith University,
16 January 2008
Photographs evoke emotional stories.
A photographic exhibition capturing the lived experience of those with serious and chronic mental illnesses will be on display at the Queensland College of Art from January 17-27 2009.
'Wounded not Conquered' by Griffith University senior lecturer, Dr. Juanita Muller, is the culmination of a three-year inter-disciplinary study combining psychology and photo-documentary practice.
Dr. Muller worked with the residents of hostels and boarding houses to capture the complex and multi-dimensional layers of the lives of those diagnosed with a mental illness. The result is a series of 22 photographs depicting their lives.
"I aimed to extend traditional psychological research to bring out findings using images to enhance our understanding of their experiences," Dr. Muller said.
"Using visual psychology provides a new way for individual stories to be told in context. It explores how it feels to suffer from chronic, serious mental illness and exist on the margins of our community."
“I’m a rich man you know. The bastards have got all my money. I’ve been working twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week in my head for the last five days with the police and the FBI trying to get my money back. I went to the bank and told them but they still wouldn’t give it to me”
“The Queen rang me up to say she was back from America. They were planning to blow up the Texas oil fields but Reagan sent up the boys from the airforce. I saw Tokyo Rose’s daughter, she was good looking”
“I feel like I’m being monitored 24 hours a day – some sort of energy from a satellite. Little electronic bullets hit me, and I get a fair deal of pain for a little while”
This research has been conducted with consent of the participants and with approval from the Griffith University ethics committee.
So, how does it feel to live with a mental illness? The research shows that daily life is punctuated by medication, coffee, cigarettes, sleeping, sitting, talking, thinking, and from time to time, schizophrenic thoughts and voices. Overwhelmingly, loneliness and isolation dominate despite ready company. Being lost in thought is evident. Remnants of institutionlization remain with externally structured routines, sitting and waiting… living the best and only way they know how. For these people, mental illness dominates their lives in many ways but does not destroy them. They continue to face the daily challenges with assistance and care… wounded not conquered (Mark, 2007).
"Juanita's images reward careful close reading. They contain many subtly interwoven stories - hangovers of institutional life and deadening daily routines, inside the residences everywhere there are distressing signs of poverty and social isolation. Living with mental illness obviously takes a heavy toll. But we can also see traces of individual courage and personal expression in precious possessions thoughtfully arranged around a bed and in simple but treasured freedoms of being able to choose to sit and yarn or dream the day away"
— Professor Anna Haebich, multi-award-winning historian and author of 'Broken Circles: Fragmenting Indigenous Families 1800-2000' and her new book, 'Spinning the Dream, Assimilation in Australia 1950-1970.'
"The work is powerful and effective – it creates new boundaries with regard to the often-restricted nature of psychological analysis"
— Dr. Peter Davis.