Laëtitia Donval, Nerves (psychiatry), from PRIVATE 49 – FRANCE présences
«I was in a psychiatric institute, immersed in a place I could not escape from. Facing the other patients’ vulnerability as much as my own, I photographed the daily setting of our isolation: rooms, corridors and the misty landscape surrounding the building that reflected our faded gazes. Although we shared the same space, we were deeply locked in ourselves, prisoners of the past and of the ‘chemical straitjacket’ that buried the pain, kept all our desires muted. In this momentary loss of external reality, I mixed a slow documentary with a brutal approach focusing on my surroundings, mostly composed of people of various ages linked by mental suffering. This work is not a testimony about psychiatry but describes my feelings of anger and resignation needed to accept our common fragility.»
