Mentally Occupied, is a collection of digital visuals. The visuals expose different mental disorders, which are universal disorders that humans experience regardless of nationality, ethnicity, or geographic location. I chose to work with the most common mental disorders in Palestine, which is my original source of inspiration and focus for this art project.
Mentally Occupied
Mental health has always been implicitly prohibited in most places on earth. Suffering from a mental disorder is often taken as something taboo, as well as shameful. This negativity associated with mental health is derived from culture, which has historically and presently portrayed mental disorders as excessively repulsive or, perhaps, too sacred for "ordinary" people to deal with. Being crazy, fearless, mad, free, mentally ill, normal, odd and different is part of human nature, but unfortunately, our modern society often fails to tap into the uniqueness and differences that humans exhibit. Society has restricted us with countless criteria and standards that we should follow, all in the spirit of conforming to the norm.
The Palestinian population has been exposed to a series of traumatic events, including imprisonment, torture and human rights abuse, house demolitions, land confiscation, movement restrictions and the indignities of unemployment and under-employment. Wages are low and travel hours long, reducing family time. Land confiscation in particular is a source of much frustration and tension, while house demolitions, used as a collective punishment by the Israeli army, have an immense psychological impact. The home is not just a shelter, but the heart of family life. Losing one’s home is more than a physical disaster, because it evokes the traumatic experiences associated with being a refugee. Shelling of Palestinian areas and the demolition of Palestinian homes also bring back memories of Palestinian losses in the 1948 war, a particularly acute and deep-seated source of fear and insecurity.
Safer spaces
Safer Spaces is a collective consciousness art exhibition held at the Art space museum in Bahrain. The exhibition aims to normalize and spark conversation around the topic of mental health in the Arab world.
Mentally Occupied was exhibited for the first time at the very first exhibition in the Middle East to tackle mental health.