Welcome to My Fucking Brain is an art installation with an artist book that embodies my relentless determination to make meaning from my struggle with mental health. Growing up in a predominately white suburb in Connecticut, I grappled with my identity as a queer Latino with generalized anxiety and panic disorder.
To process my anxieties, I write an endless stream of consciousness on anything that can act as a piece of paper and then disfigure and reconfigure the text in many different ways. I hang the text up. I tear it apart. I put it back together. I obscure it with charcoal, ink, and wax paper. I crumple it up. Sometimes, I throw it in the trash to never be used again. I manifest how consuming anxiety can be. Rather than hiding this struggle, I welcome it and reveal it to the viewer. The walls are an archive of my struggle, and the artist book, Querencia, suggests a path through grief and loneliness to growth and meaning. By showing the messy process and the resulting book, I invite people to be more curious about mental health and those who share similar struggles to feel understood and more hopeful.
