The Things I'll Never Say
A fast paced video installation of inner thoughts
The Things I’ll Never Say is a video installation of two stacked projections showing fast paced images overtop each other. Each video shows a collage of internal thoughts, carefully stacked upon one another in white to drown each other out. Each passage stems from the thoughts I’ve had in my life at different times, from anxiety, to depression, to OCD, to intrusive thoughts. While the viewer interacts with this installation they are overwhelmed by the amount of information included, mixed with the inability to read any of it, needing to focus hard to understand anything. The difficulty to comprehend this installation directly correlates to how I feel sharing any of these thoughts, how when dealing with mental illness for decades you lose the want to share anything you are experiencing. In contrast to the title of the work, I have said some of these thoughts out loud, but the name is found in the loss of repetition in resharing when I face another round of suicidal ideations. Hiding each thought within this work represents how mental health comes in waves, I’ll crash to be followed with a passage of peace, just for everything to come crashing down again. Yet with the following crash it’s all the same thing yet again, and I’ll lose the interest in getting help when I’ve experienced the exact same things before and shared those details, so how will sharing those details again help? My hope for The Things I’ll Never Say is for a viewer to really focus in on these words, to take their time to peel away meaning and figure out what I’m trying to say. In my own life, when I crash and refuse to say what’s on my mind, those close to me need to peel away my thoughts and spend extra time to understand what’s going on with me, so it's only fair that my viewers need to do the same.