AMY BRANDON

This section is dedicated to documenting my points of development throughout the project - which were often influenced and in reaction to the research material I was taking in. 

​

Exploring the theme of self-care and mental health without directly documenting my own eperiences was difficult to separate. How do I create work that is personal but also relatable? the juxtaposition, or even combination of both subjective and objective. 

​

I have chosen to "exhibit" my work this way to contextualise my final piece. I like to show how my project started, its development and its end - although I never know if projects are truly finished. 

This project ended up having a huge impact on me that I wasn't expecting - primarily, I thought it would be a huge help rather than hinder my mental health. The constant editing and animating became debilitating at times.

 

It has made me really reflect on my practice, and I've concluded that I much prefer and value my work more when it has had a profound impact on me, and the outcome maybe isn't the most important to me anymore.

Notable influences for this project are video games, how self care is represented in popular culture, and online influencers. I was particularly inspired by the idea of daily "vlogs" and showing how I was trying to care for myself by going on walks.

I then started taking in information and forming my own opinions on #selfcare trends, and capitalism-rooted "self-love" based content on social media. 

Whilst going through this project, I was dealing with my own personal problems that ended up dictating the amount of work I would do within a day, if any at all. Executive dysfunction and low self-esteem being the main issues, I found myself in trances unable to concentrate, with a feeling of fuzzyness in my brain and eyes, hence the title of the project.