BUCKHAM GALLERY
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        • Penchant: Devan Horton
      • Early Summer Exhibitions >
        • Selvage: Jim Arendt
        • At Home: Candace Compton Pappas
      • Subtle Shifts
      • Disrupted Realism
      • Late Winter Exhibitions >
        • Chad Erpelding: Gains and Losses
        • Deepanjan Mukhopadhyay: Appropriated Figure-Grounds
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Indexing Schizophrenia | Diane Zeeuw

Indexing Schizophrenia | Diane Zeeuw

In Conversation: Diane Zeeuw
Artist Statement 

Introduction
This body of work cites and recycles images, objects, and information culled from a wide range of cultural and personal sources, including neuroscience and the broader medical field, the widespread proliferation of photographs of abandoned psychiatric facilities, historical documentation, and firsthand accounts of the experience of schizophrenia. Such images and objects have come to stand for, and in some instances have risen to the level of, iconic representation. In a positive way these various cultural artifacts can be interpreted as giving material form to what would otherwise remain an abstract checklist of symptoms, but conversely they may also be criticized as merely replaying unexamined beliefs regarding mental illness. Thus, in developing this project, the following questions repeatedly surfaced. First off, “How might such images unwittingly reinforce narratives of mental illness as a psychotic phantasmagoria of otherworldly radical difference?” Secondly, “Is it possible to produce images that do not collapse into tired cultural tropes?” And finally, “In direct contrast to the official indexing functionality of many of the source images, is there any sort of counter-narrative resistance arising from what can best be described as aesthetic excess?”  

Some Brief Ruminations:
Biomedical images of the brain
The brain is arguably the most mysterious and complex organ of the human body, experienced as a material substance and also understood to be the site of complex abstract functions seemingly in excess of current psychological/neurological explanation. Since Descartes we have grappled with notions of consciousness, from the model of the proverbial “ghost in the machine” of normative dualism, to visualizing the functioning of the mind as a complex organic network. There are, of course, a plethora of images attempting to model or map the functioning of the mind/brain relationship. Models include “locationist” comparisons to “jigsaw puzzles,” or “connectionist” computer analogies envisioning the mind as a parallel processing machine.1 Other contemporary neurologists picture the brain as a complex electrical circuit, a series of chemical interactions, a neural system of components, or as a forest of interwoven neural threads.2 

Given the complexity of the many ways we seek to understand and visualize the function of the human mind, we might ask, “How has biomedical brain imaging technology impacted notions of identity, personhood, and illness?” Moreover, “How might our aesthetic preferences inadvertently shape our affective understanding of such images?”


The abandoned psychiatric hospital
I would like to suggest that the image of the abandoned asylum functions as a haunted signifier in and of itself—constantly revisited and disrupted by the other for which it purports to speak. Architectural space certainly functions as a sort of “stage for the imaginary,” enabling our fantastical projection of the other. As de Certeau and Soja have both noted, architectural space is where we anticipate our encounter with the other. To quote de Certeau, space makes possible our “passage towards the other as the law of being and the law of place.”3 But we might also ask, “Do such spaces also inflict an intimation of the Real” (and here I am thinking of Zizek and Lacan), where all fantasies must inevitably fail—disrupted, fragmented, deranged? 

Meta-representation and failure 
To refine our understanding of metacognition and meta-representation, evolutionary biologists and psychologists have turned to the study of autism, schizophrenia, and other neurological disorders. As noted by researchers Leda Cosmides and Jon Tooby, to study schizophrenia is to peer into what happens when our scope-limiting structure has been disabled, or greatly impaired, suggesting that schizophrenia may be the result of a “late onset breakdown of the meta-representational system.”4 

I am interested in trying to convey on an affective/material/visual level this fragmentation of the meta-representational system and the resultant excessive propensity of those suffering from psychosis to produce unmoored connections between disparate items and events.  Albeit, in producing the paintings, I also recognize and admit a modicum of failure. In many ways the paintings replay problematic representations associated with the condition of schizophrenia, and it may be hopeless, even impossible, to avoid negative and positive stereotypes. But, on the other hand, it may be an even more effective strategy to simply accept and own the default interpretation, and in doing so, openly acknowledge the impact such images have had upon our dreams and fears. 


                                                
1 Michael R. Trimble, The Soul in the Brain the Cerebral Basis of Language, Art, and Belief. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2007. Douglas Hofstadter has also been a key exponent of the now
pervasive model of mind as a circuit-system of input/outputs. 
2 Carl E. Schoonover, Portraits of the Mind: Visualizing the Brain from Antiquity to the 21st Century. New York: Abrams, 2010
3 Michael de Certeau, The Practice of Everyday Life, University of California Press, 1984, p. 109-110.
4 John Tooby and Leda Cosmides, “The Evolution of Decoupling.” Meta-representations: a Multi-disciplinary Perspective, edited by Dan Sperber, Oxford University Press, 2000, 55-103


Artist Bio

Professor Diane Zeeuw is Chair of the MA in Visual and Critical Studies and MFA/BFA Painting programs at Kendall College of Art and Design of Ferris State University (KCAD). Her research has been presented at numerous national and international conferences including the Mediations Biennale, Poznan, Poland; the Conference on the Image, Freie Universität, Berlin; the Third International Interdisciplinary Conference, University of South Africa, Pretoria; and the American Studies Association of Korea (ASAK) International Conference on “The Changing Contours of American Identity,” Chung-Ang University, Seoul, South Korea. Professor Zeeuw’s scholarly research has also been published in numerous peer review journals including “The Brown Body as Thirdspace: Ta-Nehisi Coates Between the World and Me,” w: Scripta Humana, Vol. 15, Liminality and Beyond: Conceptions of In-betweenness in American Culture and Literature (2021); “Schizophrenia: A Journey Through Higher Education,” Thought and Action, The National Education Association Higher Education Journal, Volume 31, No. 2. (2016); and a “Case Study: The Development and Evolution of the Creative Arts Practice-led Ph.D. at the University of Melbourne, Victorian College of the Arts,” Leonardo Journal, MIT Press, Cambridge, MA, doi: 10.1162/LEON_a_01407 (2017). Additionally, Professor Zeeuw’s studio work has been exhibited at the Shanghai Meilidao International Art Institution, China; the New Arts Program, Kutztown, PA; and Gallery 33 Contemporary, Zhou B Art Center, Chicago, IL, among other venues. Her studio work may also be found in the permanent collections of the Detroit Institute of Art; the Steelcase Corporation; The Robert B. Annis Water Resources Institute; The Cook-DeVos Center for Health Sciences; and Pfizer Pharmaceuticals, and Grand Valley State University. ​

Buckham Gallery is funded by the following organizations:
Generous support is provided by the Charles Stewart Mott Foundation. 

Our activities are sponsored in part by an award from the MICHIGAN ARTS AND CULTURE COUNCIL  and the NATIONAL ENDOWMENT FOR THE ARTS. 
​

This program is sponsored by the Greater Flint Arts Council Share Art Genesee Grant Program made possible by the Genesee County Arts Education and Cultural Millage funds. Your tax dollars are at work!
Picture
  • Home
  • Exhibitions
    • January Solo Exhibitions >
      • Crawl Space | Guen Montgomery
      • Portraits of Home | Whitney Lea Sage
      • Interior Visions: Domestic Sphere | Stephanie Serpick
    • In Conversation
    • Exhibition Opportunities >
      • Small Works Exhibition
      • Teeth & Hair
      • PRESENTATION GUIDELINES
    • 2022-2023 Exhibition Schedule
    • Selected Past Exhibitions >
      • Early Winter Exhibitions >
        • Empty Road, Great Tornado - Emmett Merrill
        • Nice Things for Nice People - Kate Snow
        • Recent Work - Michael Melet
      • November Exhibition >
        • Buckham Artist Collaborators
        • On Screen: A Showcase
      • 101 Artists
      • Ojichaagwan Vessels- Guy Adamec
      • Caution: May Contain Nudity >
        • Donovan Entrekin
        • Friends
      • Summer Exhibitions >
        • Heidi Brueckner
        • Craig Hinshaw
        • Michael Weigman
      • Early Summer Exhibitions >
        • Barriers & Preservers | Margaret Davis
        • Endless Endeavors | Benjamin Muñoz
      • BIPOC is The Theme! >
        • BIPOC Artists for Feature Exhibition
        • Viewing Room
      • Late Winter Exhibitions >
        • Dialectics and the Decommodified: The Spectres of Capital- Morgan Craig
        • Textures of the Southwest- Robert Huebel
        • All the Pretty Little Horses- Chris Waters
      • Small Talk >
        • Viewing Room
      • December Exhibitions >
        • Horizons | Emily Legleitner
        • Indexing Schizophrenia | Diane Zeeuw
        • Seeking Solace | Rebecca Zeiss
      • Black & White
      • Entropy >
        • Viewing Room
      • Late Summer Exhibitions >
        • Hyper-Tension: Matthew Owen Wead
        • Nigrescence Comics: Kenish Magwood
      • Summer Exhibitions >
        • Beastly Luster: Kelly Boehmer
        • No Dark In Sight: Bill Davis
        • Penchant: Devan Horton
      • Early Summer Exhibitions >
        • Selvage: Jim Arendt
        • At Home: Candace Compton Pappas
      • Subtle Shifts
      • Disrupted Realism
      • Late Winter Exhibitions >
        • Chad Erpelding: Gains and Losses
        • Deepanjan Mukhopadhyay: Appropriated Figure-Grounds
        • Jordan Vinyard: Summary of A Few Volts
      • JANUARY 2021 >
        • Karen Milito
        • Nancy Pennell
        • Linda Lou Woodruff
      • December 2020: United By One >
        • United By One: Allen
        • United By One: LaBret Einstein
        • United By One: Haylett
        • United By One: Hershman
      • November 2020: BAC Exhibitions >
        • A Climate Of Change: Viewing Room
        • Shadows: 2020 Buckham Print Exchange
      • October 2020: Serious Play >
        • Serious Play: Andy Hill
        • Serious Play: Timothy Kranz
        • Serious Play: Sifus J Thompson
      • September 2020: Dear Memory, >
        • Aj Cooke: Fragmented Place
        • Michele Leclaire
        • Lauren Scavo-Fulk
      • August 2020: Ineffable Benedictions >
        • Matthew Osmon: Private Insurrection
        • 0591: People First
        • Rachel Singel: Metamorphosis
      • July 2020: Verisimilitude
      • Feb. 2020: Eros and Thanatos >
        • Eros & Thanatos: Award Winners
      • Jan. 2020
      • 2019 Exhibitions
    • Art Money
  • Events
    • Calendar
    • B.Y.O.C.
    • Open Mic
    • Flint ARTWALK
    • Cider & Slides
    • Past Events
    • Past Artist Talks >
      • 2022 Smallidge Lecture
      • Jan. 10, 2020: Artist Talks with Ardea Thurston-Shaine and Dominique Chastenet de Gary
      • Tommy Mintz, Nov. 2019
      • 2019 Smallidge Lecture
      • June 2019: Panel Discussion with John Dempsey, Guy Adamec, and Amy Gibas
      • May 4, 2019- Artist Talk with Stephen Halko and Nick Reszetar
      • April 13, 2019 ​Artist Talk and Deviant Life Drawing Session with Jeanine Leclaire
  • PROJECTS
    • BFAP: On Screen >
      • On Screen Artists
      • FAQ
    • BFAP: Interns
    • BFAP: Writer in Residence >
      • Bob Campbell
      • Natasha Thomas
      • Shea Phire Cobb
    • Collaborators at Karmanos
    • Emerging Artist with UM-F >
      • My Proulx
  • About Buckham
    • Mission Statement
    • Board and Staff
    • Buckham Arts Collective
    • Buckham Community Membership
    • Founders Feature >
      • FOUNDERS FEATURE: THOMAS NUZUM
      • Founders Feature: Sam Morello
      • Founders Feature: Ken Kinyon
      • Founders Feature: John Dempsey
      • FOUNDERS FEATURE: GUY ADAMEC
    • History
    • 2021 Annual Report >
      • 2020 Annual Report
    • News/Press >
      • Archives
    • BAC 2022-2023 >
      • 2022-23 BAC Renewal
      • Bylaws
      • Policies
  • SUPPORT
    • 2022-2023 Annual Fund
    • WIR Support
    • Community Membership
    • Online Shop
  • Visit
    • CONNECT
    • Covid-19 Safety Plan