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This wonderful panel, moderated by Michael Green, presents the creators of three unique and insightful graphic pathographies.
Jenny Lin is a visual artist based in Montreal. She has created experimental narrative-based works in the formats of 2-D print, artist books, video and site-specific installation. She recently worked as a medical illustrator at McGill University and she currently teaches at Concordia University in the Print Media program. www.jenny-lin.ca. She writes of her presentation,
In my presentation, Skinny Leg, I will describe my artist book, Skinny Leg. Skinny Leg is a first-person account of an accident I was involved in in December 2009 in which I was run over by a truck while cycling to work. With images, text, pop-up components and fold-out pages, this book blends clinical and matter-of-fact descriptions of the accident together with intimate anecdotes of seemingly inconsequential details surrounding the event. What is revealed is the strangeness and banality of the experience as well as the mutability of memory.
Nancy Andrews’ work has been presented by the Museum of Modern Art, Pacific Film Archive, Anthology Film Archives, and Flaherty Seminars; six of her films are in the MoMA collection. She received a Guggenheim Fellowship in filmmaking, 2008; and, MFA, School of the Art Institute of Chicago. Andrews teaches at the College of the Atlantic. http://www.nancyandrews.net
This talk, Loupette and the Moon: A graphic pathology of genetics, destiny and trauma, explores the development and expression of ideas, memories and emotions in a semi-autobiographical comic book, Loupette and the Moon. The narrative of Loupette, a girl with hypertrichosis, presents ideas about the mind, sanity and perception, based on my experience as a person with a genetic disorder experiencing delirium and medical trauma. Loupette connects to a series of drawings, “Delirious”, that depict the devastating territory of Intensive Care Unit (ICU) delirium and its psychological aftermath. This talk will question the ways that drawn narratives enter into dialogue with medical research, patient education and public awareness of health/medical issues. Andrews also discusses her work around intensive care unit psychosis.
Sarafin is a Toronto area artist, writer, and activist. A self-described “psych heretic”, Sarafin’s art mainly involves themes of madness, spirituality, psychiatry, and drug culture. She enjoys making comics, shopping, spending quiet nights at home in contemplation, and drinking chai tea lattes. http://www.asylumsquad.com/pages/about/ Sarafin also designed the Mad Pride Toronto logo. http://www.madprideto.com
Life with psychosis is tough… spending a year in CAMH’s 1001 Queen Mental Health Centre is even tougher. To get through the experience, artist/writer Sarafin coped using her joy of creating comics. And so, Asylum Squad Side Story, the webcomic, was born. 44 pages into the serial, and Sarafin was discharged, but she continued the comic, developing a following in the Mad Pride and psychiatric survivor communities. This presentation will discuss the comic itself, Sarafin’s personal experiences with healing and the Toronto mental health system, as well as the Mad Pride movement.
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