"I don’t care. Disintegration"

I decided to observe and talk about the problem of “disturbances” that come up in human minds in some complicated moments in life.
“Disturbances” are my name for mental conditions that are full of dissonance and disintegration.
My starting point and inspiration for the work was the theory of positive disintegration by Kazimierz Dąbrowski.
Kazimierz Dąbrowski, a famous Polish clinical psychologist, psychiatrist, philosopher and teacher, developed the theory of positive disintegration. It became really close to me and consistent with what I saw in many of my friends, myself and my colleagues in the project.
Dąbrowski presented his theory, in which mental disturbances are a precondition for personal development of an individual.
Everything, in order to evolve, must first disintegrate or destroy its primary structure.
This is what I call “disturbing development”. Disturbances are actually the consequence of disintegration of the old structures for new structures, which entails evolution of personality.

I decided to take a look at the specific problems of people who isolate themselves from the society, withdraw, experience episodes of depression and breakdowns.

I picked six people who are in a similar, and special, situation. In my conversations with them, I often heard “I don’t care”, which was a common motif for their situations.

However, as a result of a more profound analysis of these people, this kind of expression is not a self-diagnosis for me but rather a verbal veil and a manner to avoid the “disturbing” problems of the soul, which enables to temporarily reduce the perception of their dramatic situation.

When I spent time with these people, I witnessed – under the cover of apparent resignation – a constant struggle in their minds.
The ongoing mental processes used up their energy resources, causing fatigue and lowered mood. Despite frequent and superficial surrender states, I saw their will, strength and hope for a change.

“Disturbances” in their minds were, in my opinion, a necessary factor of the ongoing transformational processes.
In order for a new thing to be build, something old must disintegrate.
This is what I would like to tell with my photographs.

The photographs show interiors which are the direct surrounding of my subjects. Their bedrooms where they spend most of their time, and at the same time the places that are subject to transformation caused by human presence.
The interiors create a kind of portraits of the persons who stay inside.

I compose my photographs of many smaller elements.

It is a photographic collage recording smaller or bigger changes that occurred in the room with time. The disturbing changes that can be seen in the photographs as shifts and disturbances of perspective embody to some extent the “disturbing” evolution that goes on in the minds of my subjects.
The individual photographs that make up for the entire collage were not taken at once.
Therefore, the most important element of the work is that it records changes to the interiors under the influence of changes to the mental condition of the persons who live in them.