'Talking Heads'- Mel Brimfield

Commissioned by Attenborough Arts Centre, visual artist Mel Brimfield created the ‘Talking Heads’ exhibition, which draws predominantely from themes of mental health. The work displays an array of multi-media instillations, film, and comic style images, depicting the experiences of those living from and recovering from psychosis. It draws from Brimfield’s own research at the Department of Psychosis Studies at Kings College Institute of Psychiatry, Psychology and Neuroscience, and the National Psychosis Unit at Bethlem Hospital, London.

‘I cannot shake the idea that I am an imposter’

‘My father refuses to accept my brothers’ diagnosis of schizophrenia’

‘As the sands pass through the hourglass, I am conscious of a sense of increasing regret with no fixed palpable source’

Just a few of the phrases from Brimfield’s ‘NUTS: The Remembrance of Things Past’, where the peanuts character Lucy is used as a psychiatrist to the artist, who’s speech bubbles of therapy sessions fill the art work. The lines suggest the struggling relationship with her father, the death of her mother, and confessions of her own self-doubt and mental illness. I very much enjoyed the way Brimfield chose to depict very personal and emotional experiences in such a well-loved cartoon, juxtaposing the themes brilliantly, and providing me personally with the interesting concept of not wanting to reach out to a physical person, but relying on the imaginary. The artist explains Lucy is used as a way of assessing the ethics of the project, opening up to her audience honestly and directly with such sensitive material.

In the same way this piece used the snoopy comics, Brimfield focuses on the famous Berkoff play, ‘Metamorphosis’ to highlight other aspects of her study such as isolation. The sound instillation is set inside a recording studio, where one audience member at a time listens to the recording process of the radio play of ‘Metamorphosis’ through a pair of headphones, placing particular emphasis on the harsh notes from the director. This was a lovely way of experiencing the story, and demonstrating its underlying themes, which link quite perfectly with psychosis, however arguably without reading her reasoning behind the instillation, it was difficult to understand why specifically this was significant to Brimsfields study.

As with all art, it is subjective, and the exploration continued for me into an even stranger situation with the film elements of the exhibition. For me there was minimal context behind them, other than the suggestion of hearing voices, and hallucination, suggested by the use of headphones, and voiceovers. The images in one film were more relevant, indicating the experiences of MRI scans and contorting images of scientists to depict the sense of hallucination for the audience, however the other seemed more nonsense than useful. This film was made up of a series of ludicrous sketches starring actor Arthur Darvill, ending with a rendition of hopelessly devoted to you by Olivia Newton-John. A particular stand out for me was the clip explaining how to make money, where Darvill menacingly explained the steps to success, before asking the audience to reach out and touch his face on the screen. This left me and my fellow audience members simply confused and at this point, many people left this instillation.

On the whole the verbatim posters did the best job of portraying not only the experiences of those dealing with the condition, but also of the carers, nurses, neuroscientists, psychologists, occupational therapists, social workers and academics who work to understand and provide support. This was the most poignant part of the exhibition for me, and portrayed all the research and emotion without relying on any technology. They were styled in a comic, almost pop art structure, making them more accessible for a wider audience, and this was the room I could have spent all day in, reading and taking in every story on each poster.

Altogether, Mel Brimfield did a very intriguing job with this project, creating some lovely pieces, while others were surrounded by a lot of controversial opinions. Her collaborations with filmmakers Nick Abrahams and Milo Creese and composer/ sound designers Pal Higgs and Gareth Fry, while executed very well, were confusing and arguably absurd. However, I commend the artist in using these original strategies to articulate findings, as altogether they created an overall more memorable experience, and did well to provoke thoughts and questions in viewer’s minds.

The exhibition will be at Attenborough Arts Centre until 17^th April