Taylor Cozart

Film and Familiar Feelings

Discussing mental health has always been, unfortunately, a taboo topic. The secrecy around such discussions only stigmatizes the world of neurodivergence and ultimately others those who suffer daily in silence. Mental health and mental illness should not be a source of shame or an embarrassment. This photographic series works to destigmatize and share the stories of people battling, thriving, and managing their mental health within their environments and on their own terms. 

 An important aspect of these images and a focal point of the conversations that I have with my models is the impact of their environment on their mental health. Portions of these conversations have been transcribed and placed alongside the images of the models. These transcriptions work to provide agency to those, who in the past would have otherwise been dismissed. The environments in which we live and the life events we endure significantly play a role in how we act, feel, and cope with our emotions. 

As someone who battles mental illness daily, it is vital to capture stories through means of which my participants feel comfortable sharing. Film photography correlates with my own mechanisms of expression and allows for the messages of vulnerability, agency, and intimacy, to become clearer. This medium is a form of reclaiming voices through means of emulation and is a reflection on medical portraits that were used to document the mental illnesses of patients within a variety of facilities such as sanitoriums and asylums. Like medical portraits, I too am documenting my models and their mental health, but in a way, they want to be seen and heard. Developing film is an intimate process that relies on specific procedures and attention to detail, aspects that also occurred during my conversations with my participants. The intimacy and nature of the conversations that we had throughout the time we spent together lends itself to the closeness of the film medium. Film is more than a medium, it’s a mode of expression, a form of agency and a way that I create my own narrative and share the narratives of others in a light that is accurate. 

Contact me

tcozart@msudenver.edu
720-380-8123

IG: tcozartphotography