For fifty years, my wife’s parents owned and operated a home for ex-psychiatric patients; a community reintegration program run as a house, not an institution. From 2021 to 2024, my wife and I – along with our two small children – took over operations and lived at the home with twelve residents. We made meals for them, cared for them, and over time, we became vessels for their anxiety and neuroses. Through this encounter I have gained an enhanced understanding of my wife Leah’s experience of growing up in this home with her family and the home itself is a character in this story.
If I could use one concept to describe what I think the residents lack most in their lives, it would be ‘being seen’. Being seen not as someone with a deficiency or someone who is lacking, but someone who is complete. Someone who is whole. The residents are beautiful, complex, interesting and relevant people who struggle; they are not typically thought of as ‘complete’, but they are. Just as we all are.
We naturally feel connected to people who are similar to us, and we often fear what we don’t understand. This is a fundamental aspect of the human experience. I believe these images are important because society is built on an unspoken, shared understanding of what it means to be a complete and whole person. When someone doesn’t fit this definition, they are disenfranchised, excluded, and sometimes made to feel irrelevant. This process of evaluation operates on a spectrum, but it is harmful and dangerous. It marginalizes many groups.
This series of images focuses on people who struggle with mental health, but I believe this hidden way of evaluating ourselves and others extends far beyond that. It serves as a framework for creating division and judgment in our communities. This phenomenon is more relevant in today’s geopolitical climate than ever before and I endeavour through these images to magnify the complexity and precarity of our collective mental health while building a space for the residents to be seen and feel represented.
