After years of persistent insomnia, loss of interest in my surroundings, marked memory loss, physical pain without cause, unexplained heavy guilt, and erratic anxiety, I went to the hospital for psychiatric tests and was diagnosed with Major Depressive disorder. After going through two years of intermittent treatment, I did not heal, and my struggle intensified due to pressure from my family and their incomprehension of my disorder. As a way to cope with this predicament, I chose to pick up the camera and create a visual language to describe how I live with depression and its manifestations.
My experience with depression is multilayered, and my artistic investigation of it is both personal and challenging, but the goal of my work is never singular or self-centered. These photos represent the torment and pain I experienced as a patient with major depression, and also record the process of my constant struggle with it. What's more, it's a visual diary about a depressive patient that I created as a photographer using lens language. The process of shooting and editing this project is also the process by which I try to find a suitable way to communicate with the outside world and society. The purpose of my works is to help those who may be indirectly impacted by depression to understand mental illness more comprehensively and establish an accurate perspective on the patients. We live in a society where people still hold prejudices against those with mental illness and fail to understand it. My photos serve as a window so that viewers can better understand and offer a helping hand to their families and friends who suffer from the same pain around them.
TAKE A REST
Medium: digital print on Moab Entrada Rag Natural 300 Paper
Size: 12x18 inch, edition 1/10
SLIPPERY
Medium: digital print on Moab Entrada Rag Natural 300 Paper
Size: 12x18 inch, edition 1/10
IT SEEMS FLAT
Medium: 35mm film, digital print on Moab Entrada Rag Natural 300 Paper
Size: 16x24 inch, edition 1/10
PEAR
Medium: 35mm film, digital print on Moab Entrada Rag Natural 300 Paper
Size: 16x24 inch, edition 1/10
FAMILY MEAL
Medium: 35mm film, digital print on Moab Entrada Rag Natural 300 Paper
Size: 8x12 inch, edition 1/10
SELF PORTRAIT
Medium: digital print on Moab Entrada Rag Natural 300 Paper
Size: 16x24 inch, edition 1/10
EYESIGHT
Medium: digital print on Moab Entrada Rag Natural 300 Paper
Size: 12x18 inch, edition 1/10
BURNING
Medium：35mm film, digital print on Moab Entrada Rag Natural 300 Paper
Size: 10x15 inch, edition 1/10
ABOUT THE ARTIST
Lingxue (Luna) Hao is a photographer from China who now studies and lives in Savannah, USA.
After working as a food photographer for two years, she turned her focus to telling stories using visual language. She is particularly interested in finding beauty from ordinary and mundane and creating virtual dairy based on every day’s love, loss, and reflection. Besides, she also prefers to use photographic books to display her work and is very experienced in making different handmade books.