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Enlightening Project about Alzheimer's Disease

Student: Astakhova Viktoriia

Supervisor: Alexey Ryumin

Faculty: Faculty of Creative Industries

Educational Programme: Design (Bachelor)

Year of Graduation: 2018

In the title of my work, I quote Susan Sontag's essay "Disease as a Metaphor" in 1978. In her study, the writer analyzed the mental appearance of certain diseases in the public mind on the example of fiction. Speaking about the theme of disease and art, we are certainly faced with the task of resolving the ethical question, what is considered a disease? It would seem obvious that the correct answer here should be a medical diagnosis. However, one of the most visited exhibitions in history is the exhibition of degenerate art, Germany in 1937. The authors of the works were "diagnosed" by the policy of the Third Reich. That is, the question of determining a patient in art does not depend on medical indicators, but on the socio-cultural realities of time. In the essay "The History of Madness in the Classical Era" (1961), Michel Foucault reveals the phenomenon of "disciplinary authority", the teaching of being socially normal. The author also conducts a historical analysis that reveals the general socio-cultural root in the perception of marginalia, disease, and low status in society. As a result of the research, it was revealed that the subject matter of the disease and art can be divided according to the following criteria: isolated / repressed art and art deconstructing the usual narrative. The first chapter is devoted to artists who were in exposition of the exhibition of degenerative art, American art of the 60s about the war in Vietnam and homosexuality, unofficial art of the USSR and some of our contemporaries. The second chapter tells about artists who create space for dialogue about gray areas in media space. Themes of works are "ignoble" diseases, non-traditional relations, questions of the value of human dignity, marginalia. Based on the study recommended in the narrative of the disease to make a bright contrast and comparison with a healthy state, since in the absence of this disease will be the only norm.

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