SALA 2023

The Asylum Gene

A multimedia/mixed media exhibition by Kendrea Rhodes

_{The Asylum Gene artwork is the flagship for this exhibition. This video takes the artwork a step beyond mixed media into multimedia as a digitised exploration of incarceration and mental distress.}

What is madness? How can creative practices affect your perception of insanity? Can personal stories of madness change perceptions of mental distress in our culture?

The Asylum Gene SALA 2023 exhibition is a study in the influence of art, storytelling, and creative practices on contemporary thoughts about madness. Themes of institutionalization and trauma weave throughout this exhibition.

The Asylum Gene series includes the artworks, The Asylum Gene, Faces of Madness and Take These Pills. These works refer specifically to the institutionalization and medicalization of madness. The Trauma Bodies series studies physical responses to situations of madness such as institutionalization, bushfires, pandemic lock-down, and climate change.

The Asylum Gene series

the asylum gene statement

Trauma Bodies series

The Trauma Bodies series studies physical responses to situations of madness such as institutionalization, bushfires, pandemic lock-down, and climate change—where the bodies of trauma are human, animal, plant and celestial (earth).