The Normal Mind

These works are from a new body of work titled The Normal Mind, a series of cyanotypes exploring mental health, objectivity, and sexuality. “What is the essential characteristic of the normal mind?” This question is posed in the second chapter of a 1924 psychology text covering “mental hygiene” in children. Although some principles outlined in these pages still hold true today, many aspects embody the troubling approach that there is some objective standard by which we should be measured. Deviations from the norm were seen as problems to be fixed, which is now considered to be an abhorrent view. This series uses vintage textbooks about anatomy, health, and psychology as source material to explore the errors and tension found in these once instructive books.

The cyanotype prints are made from digital negatives using appropriated textbook pages and found photographs. Source material was collected and combined using either a flatbed scanner or combined on a cutting mat and photographed, creating photomontages printed in cyanotype.