ground control: using physical space to document rising and falling
by AV
Growing up in an immigrant family where mental illness is highly stigmatized and quickly dismissed by cultural misconceptions, it was difficult to get the support and treatment I needed growing up. Entering college, I misinterpreted my mental health as a symptom of my high school experience. I figured the collegiate transition would relieve the problems I faced.
When I came into my first semester without any real understanding of the college lifestyle, I began to experiment with what I assumed was normal—but what began as recreational smoking and drinking quickly diverted into a mode of unhealthy coping. Ongoing abuse developed into a period of poorly regulated self-medicating with opiates.
Some things became easier. But the irregular, unmoderated substance use only furthered my pre-existing problems of anxiety and depression.
Over time, my friend group and I developed a habit of skating. Trapped by the confines of cultural expectations and my congested mind, the boundless feeling of skating also made things feel better.
Eventually, this became a ritual. Whether it was midday or 4 a.m.—when someone in our friend group needed an escape, we went. On our rides, we often talked about ourselves and our problems. Trying to understand one another in those moments was simultaneously a way of starting to understand our surroundings: Iowa City.
My photo essay documents this landscape by reflecting on what an irregular mixture of opiates, skating, and cultural expectations can do to the brain over a semester. When skating is floating and self-medication its grounding force, these photographs investigate what coping can look like even in the face of continued addiction.
[in the end, i just want to talk about space]
