2022

Inquiry into the psychological process of ‘mental mapping’ urban and city spaces for safety and prevention of street violence.
Masters in Fine Art.

Birmingham School of art, Birmingham, United kingdom.

“During my Masters studies, I have been engaged with representing the physicality of the street through materiality. Leslie Kern’s interpretation of women’s experience of the street is discussed in her book, Feminist City (2019).

“(We) can’t function in a state of constant fright, we displace some of our fear onto spaces:
city streets, alleyways, subway platforms, darkened sidewalks. These spaces populate our
personal mental maps of safety and fear. The map is a living collage, with images, words,
and emotions layered over our neighbourhoods and travel routes,”

(Kern, 2019, 149)

‘Mental mapping’ is a process where (more often than not) women develop psychological maps of areas to avoid danger. The street becomes a mental collage. The internal map is fluid: constantly psychologically updating and deleting and it adapts to adjust with what is or what has been happening nearby, or on that particular route. I understood that depicting this was going to be a challenge, because it is such an intimate and internal experience.
Everyone’s perception of a mental map would be different to another’s: essentially, it is aiming to represent physical space but in a mental context, which is distorted, fractured, disoriented and disrupted. I wanted to capture the mind in an anxious state because it would reflect how some women feel.

I started to respond by representing mental maps through abstract painting. I used different tools: spatulas, sponges, straws and wax to make broken marks. The marks were representing the mess of mental processing when in distress and anxiety evoked by a particular place. They successfully explored quick, explorative and playful movements and tested the language of different qualities of marks to represent stresses and anxieties.
I successfully developed the maps by editing them through Photoshop and after testing, exploring and playing with the multitude of tools and processes, I discovered a pen tool that would enable me to draw lines and routes. This was a success because it meant that the map, or a route, was no longer being suggested by thick marks. The pen tool suggested direct routes or the formation of maps. As I added layers of line maps on top of the painting, it felt like I had achieved the idea of representing the constant re-writing and fluid aesthetic of the mental mapping process. I could explore, test, play and experiment with colours and adjusting intensities of tones to portray anxiety and fearfulness. 4 out of 8 pieces were created, printed and exhibited at the Apple Store Gallery, Hereford. During the Private View, Mental Map 1 sold. This evidenced the piece’s aesthetic success. I used a similar process with the sublimation printing in textiles to enhance technical skill development. This experiment was less successful because the results felt like fashion pieces; not statements about street issues. I found technical processes lost a sense of urgency and abruptness; which is successful because it materially conveys how the
issue with male violence against women is an issue that needs to be rapidly solved. The idea of routes and maps became lost in fabric.

Tape could portray a sense of a route; because it conveys a singular route and uses linear language that transports viewers from A to B. I built many tape collages on different surfaces: cardboard, Perspex, foam, masking tape, different canvases, white, coloured, tracing and black paper. Transparent mediums successfully evoked the sense of layering of memories and feelings created by maps. I used different types of paper to form the idea of routes instead of using tape, which was interesting because the material layering became a metaphor for the layers of memories. This project was concluded during my Artist residency at the Sidney Nolan Trust, because I reflected on my choice of material and realised that it has failed to articulate the fact that this is an issue that primarily effects women and my work was not visually reminiscent feminine traits.”

Gemma Moore (2022)

Psychological Pins to Places

Digital Collages Series

Mental Map Series (1-202)

Please enquire for prints from the Mental Map Series (2022)

Heritage Pathfinders Project – Drawn In Time

Leominster Meeting Centre

Through this project, I helped to: conduct a series of ‘experiments’ that explored how the process of drawing can help alleviate an individual affected by dementia. I used drawing, mark-making, many mediums and substrates to not only fully engage with participants but also to act as a tool to ‘unlock’ those on their dementia journey – art has the power to do this. Drawing specifically allows individuals to express feelings, ideas and emotions which is imperative to those who are suffering with dementia – it provides one of two things; a window for us to view and help how they are feeling; and gives a person affected by dementia both mental and physical space to fully and freely express themselves. This makes room for exploring exciting creative possibilities, which may not have been considered previously. I experimented with a variety of workshops that tested out and discovered what type of drawing activities engaged people with dementia the most successfully. To inform the workshops, I initiated the project through conducting research into the LMC members. This process gave me a project framework.

Drawing also engaged carers and family members because the subject is highly subjective and encourages discussion. I ought to define what I mean by ‘drawing’. In terms of contemporary Fine Art practice, contemporary drawing could be straight, simple pencil lines drawn on paper. It may not mean what many people traditionally or stereotypically think drawing should be, for example a depiction of a photo-realistic landscape drawn in pencil. This means that the definition of ‘drawing’ has been completely destroyed – meaning anyone can break down and query what they can or cannot draw, or what is acceptable as a drawing. Considering the latter, then, I would argue that painting is one form of drawing.

This destruction of firstly, what art is and secondly, what it should be, provides clear liberation for those who can feel marginalised by society, for example, people affected by dementia. This is why drawing, as a practice, or a form of therapy, is vital.

Through each discussion and workshop, my aim was to re-define how drawing is not only perceived, but used in healthcare.

Alongside as already discussed, drawing is currently used as a way of ‘defining’ somebody with dementia, and as a tool that highlights how badly they cannot do something. Art was never intended to show how someone cannot achieve a goal, instead, Art has the power, or ability to free and liberate someone from the depths of how they are feeling. I want to make art the go-to tool, language or dialogue that is used to break through social and linguistic barriers and therefore visually express someone’s thoughts, feelings and mood. Therefore, the workshops did not address what someone cannot do – instead, they were opportunities for one to express how they were feeling. The workshops were a celebration of how someone sees the world when they have dementia.

Each artwork is a form of visual identification, and celebrated through a highly supportive and creative network because they explore the individual’s ever-changing visual and spatial awareness. The drawing might give us a raw, honest and accurate insight or narrative into what it is like to have dementia.