Thoughts on Contemporary Art

Art and Awareness: A Night Dedicated to Mental Health

On the evening of Saturday, January 28th, Retrograde Collective, a Sacramento non-profit art organization, brought together a crowd of people over the topic of mental health at the Red Museum in Sacramento, CA. For some, the evening may have started a new conversation about mental health; to others, it was an opportunity to continue and expand theirs. Regardless, everyone in attendance was presented a chance to drink deeply from the performances, art, and discussions regarding and surrounding mental health.

Hung salon style, the walls featured artwork by many local artists. There were a range of styles, from non-representational abstraction to realism to video art, incorporating many different mediums on many different supports. In addition, I also enjoyed a dance performance, several music performances, personal stories of mental health, and a panel discussion before I left for the evening.

Overall, I really appreciated what the art was there to do, which was support mental health awareness; it added to the ambiance of the evening. Plus, I would assume most of the work was created by those living with a mental health disorder, which created a deeper content within the work—there was an honesty about them. One of the works that I found the strongest, and was most excited about, was a video installation by Tammy Helsinke. I personally know Tammy, however, I was unaware of what her work was about because at the time when I met her, she was still in the process of figuring out what kind of work she needed to make. However, in speaking with her about her current video installation, she revealed to me that her work now addresses her life with schizophrenia. The video she created displayed people entering and exiting a space, some wearing masks, others just poking in their head. Her video really imbued the viewer with a sense of uncertainty regarding what they were perceiving. The work created a space that seemed to be recognizable and grounded in reality, but as a viewer, one had to question if the people in the feed were really there or not. Her choice of media supported her content very well; in video, or photography, do these people, or images, truly exist? And if so, in what realm and in what capacity? How do we know what is real and what is not, especially in a time of increasingly improved technological advancements? When watching video, we are merely seeing digital files and colored pixels describing reality; but can’t files and pixels be altered? Corrupted? I digress, but regardless, Tammy is created some really great work. Personally, I am very much interested in the brain and its functioning, so getting a glimpse into a mind battling schizophrenia was quite moving; it made me appreciate the brain’s power even more.

Events such as this one show how powerful art—regardless of what kind of art (fine art, dance, music)— can be in activism. Art has the ability to teach and to educate, and should be looked at and supported in such a way.