A light on mental health
An Auckland artist is using her latest exhibition to show the mental health system is failing some people.
Tracey Cannon said her experience with mental health issues and being admitted to an Israeli psychiatric hospital in her 20s inspired her art, Chain of Events.
The piece was a 200 metre paper chain made up of pages from the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders Volume 4.
Cannon said the journal - or ‘‘psychiatric bible’’ - symbolised everything that was wrong with the way the mental health system worked.
‘‘It reduces a vast variety of human experience to illnessbased labels,’’ the Laingholm resident said.
Cannon said she had worked in mental health for the past 18 years and was not seeing the progress she would like.
‘‘In New Zealand our youth suicide rate is actually the worst in the developed world,’’ she said.
‘‘It’s clear something is not working in the way we support people to navigate difficult times, trauma, abuse, grief and the multitude of reasons people experience distress.’’
Cannon said she hoped her exhibition would create discussion, provide information about alternative ideas and encourage people to forward their ideas to the Government.
Cannon’s exhibition is currently showing at Art Centre Helensville until February 24.
‘‘It reduces a vast variety of human experience to illness-based labels.’’