Hermine Pouzoulet

At the beginning of this term I meant to make my piece about the relationship the mind has with the body. What interested me most is the discordance between our self-image and the physical reality. 

I’ve had moments where I’ve felt the connection between my mind and body slip, when the feelings in my body numb and my mind seems to evade it completely. In those moments reality seems in conflicts with itself as I feel my mind stops inhabiting the same space as my body.

My project evolved with the circumstances we all had to adjust to these past few months. Being restrained from an expansive environment meant that I would restlessly find excuses to go outside some days, and on others I would become completely complacent in the state of isolation.

For me and many others, the state of mental disconnect became easier to slip in during the lockdown. It felt like going in extremes- not finding the motivation to leave my room; and for the first time in my life, exercising for the sake of being outdoors and simply expending energy.

It struck me how healing a change of environment could be, how we affirm our existence simply by occupying space, and how the space we occupy throughout our lives shape us.

I made this piece as a representation of the awareness of the body in its environment, as I have come to understand the spaces we inhabit as inseparable to the mind/body connection.