WITHIN
Video installation, 2012

The work is part of a broader, several-year project Destigmatisation, which Andreja Kuluncic started in co-authorship with a working team and psychiatric patients from the Vrapče Psychiatric Hospital. The idea of the project was to lessen the stigma the public attaches to mental illness and psychiatric patients, giving the latter the tools needed for more successful resocialisation.

Depression is one of the most frequent psychological disturbances of the present age, one from which women suffer twice as much as men. The World Health Organisation predicts that by 2020 it will be first on the list of diseases, with a high mortality rate, even though in 90% of cases it is remediable. But 50% of sufferers never seek medical assistance, denying the condition and feeling ashamed. During six months the artist was attending the group therapy for patients with severe depression disorder in a psychiatric hospital.

The work Within speaks of this problem from a gender position. Continuing on from a wall projection of a video recording of a group therapy session (all are women patients apart from one male) for victims of severe depression are chairs set out in a circle in the real-life gallery space, simulating a therapy situation. Each viewer is drawn into the session in an almost equivalent position with the patients independently of their state of mental health. A component part of the installation consists of writings by three women experts of various methodological orientations concerning the gender-related nature of depression.

PROJEC REALIZATION:
A project is realized in Vrapče Psychiatric Hospital in Zagreb in collaboration with persons diagnosed with a major depressive disorder and Dubravka Stijačić, prof. defectologist, social pedagogue, psychotherapist.