I’m pretending that I'm standing outside a closed door II by Nora Hellsén

Necklace / Figurative Narrative

The closed door makes my anxiety increase. I’m afraid of the loneliness but even more of knocking. You’re doing the best you can, but still you cannot.
And I’ve repeated those mistakes. I’ve told myself to stop being anxious about nothing, to stop being oversensitive. I have diminished myself, yelled and closed the door for my own pain.
But it’s not working. The anxiety is still present and it feels just like it did when I was a child. I try to face it through play and craft, face it at the same stage that it first appeared. In the world of play it can reveal itself, there it can exist without blame.
In this project I have explored the therapeutic properties of art, and how I can apply these to my own experiences of mental illness and anxiety. The starting point is my own childhood and therefore I base my investigation in the world of pretend play. In play as well as art we go through creative processes based on imagination and inventiveness. I believe that play and art can help us face our inner selves and to some extent mend what is broken inside of us. Where words expose, strike wrongly and chafe, materials and images have the ability to capture the essence without exposing private details. Art gives us distance to the pain as well as it welcomes us to express our feelings without reproach.

Nora Hellsén. BA Student