100 Project Prep 3 – Collage

“Stuck Spiraling”

The collage I made relates to the experience and feeling of depression, focusing on themes that I relate to. The collage features a woman with a glass of alcohol with an expression that looks like a mix between sad and empty of emotion. Behind her is a colorful scene, almost a window into a life of love and acceptance. There also are elements that represent the destruction of nature from climate change and plastic. The collage features many different spiral elements, that represent the spiraling feeling of being depressed and there are words that say, “Where do we go from here?” as well as a walkway in outer space. Overall, these elements represent the feeling of being so low in your mental illness that you want to escape the world but at the same time the only way to go could be upwards. There is also an infinity figure representing the cyclical nature of this mental illness and life in general. In my experience, part of healing from depression is realizing these feelings and finding your own path to navigate towards an upward spiral rather than downward.

The process in making my collage seemed to flow and come together easily for me. I had little expectations when beginning to search for images in class. I knew I wanted my theme to be depression and I wanted to use the collage as a tool for my own self-expression of my experience with it. There are common themes and symbols I associate with my experience, especially “spiraling,” so I wanted to make sure I included that imagery somehow. Once I found imagery of cities and maps, I wanted to include the concept of place and feeling lost within the world. For me, this also represented our impact on climate change and my personal experience with feeling hopeless for the future of a healthy planet. Following this, I wanted to include nature and how being surrounded by it can make me feel better. I found the interesting picture of ballons alone and I thought it emphasized the lonely feeling while also representing the plastic pollution impacting our climate. I thought the imagery of the couple in love behind a window-like barrier, the only colorful component of the piece, was an interesting addition. For me, I have been in a loving long-term relationship for 8 years now, but I know that when my depression is worse it can impact our relationship. Having a partner that is there for me inspires me to stay consistent with my mental health journey to make sure I am my best self for him. Finally, the phrase “Where do we go from here?” kept popping into my head while making this, so I added it in gold to reflect in certain light so that it didn’t take away from anything else in the piece.