Individuation Headdress
This headdress was created in collaboration with Nottingham University, as part of the Pint of Science festival, which connects artists and scientists. I was twinned with psychologist Jade Duffy, who is interested in personality. She challenged me to create a piece expressing Karl Jung's 'individuation theory' of the relationship between Ego, Persona and Shadow.
The Ego is represented by the main structure, a framework bound in white cotton, to suggest neutrality, which winds around the head in undulations inspired by the contours of the brain. Our Ego underpins everything: it is the framework that shapes the whole.
The Persona - made from heat-treated, golden organza - weaves around the Ego, overlaying and almost obscuring it at times, presenting an embellished surface; this is the self we like to show to society.
The Shadow is caged within the Ego, a whirling chaos of cellophane, representing those untamed, mostly darker traits we generally suppress. As well as these socially unacceptable elements of our personality, it also contains our instinctive responses and creative impulses. Periodically, the Shadow bursts through, sometimes by the design of the Ego, occasionally by accident.
For a healthy mind, Jung believed the three elements needed to be in correct balance: the Shadow should not be entirely suppressed and the Persona should not be too overbearing.