Ongoing – 2024
‘Deflating Fruits’ is a playful sculptural installation series exploring the intersection between sport, fitness, and mental health. Sourcing second-hand expertise and sport balls across the Geelong region, the works reflect the community’s vibrant fitness identity, from local ovals, walking paths, fitness centres, to the community spirit of the local football team Geelong Cats. Alongside an underlying narrative which explores internal states of being.
As an autistic woman, managing my mental health is a vital part of navigating life as a neurodiverse and disabled person. While fitness culture often carries heavy judgment and social comparison, I want this work to celebrate the profound joy of embracing your authentic self. These works acknowledge that personal journeys are never linear and they have their ups and downs. Embracing who you are can be a confronting experience as it brings up heavy emotions.
The act of deflating these balls relates directly back to the movement of breath within the body when experiencing complex emotions like stress, exhaustion, fear, excitement, shame or holding it all in. Utilising a mix of real and artificial textures mirrors identity and the ways we perform for the outside world versus how we feel internally. Masking our differences is exhausting and detrimentally affect physical and mental health especially for neurodivergent people.
Reshaping these objects into imaginative embodiments of fruit offers a humorous and relatable way to explore these realities, create an inviting entry point for difficult conversations around mental health issues and indirectly promote the importance of maintaining a positive daily routine.
2024 – ‘Small Art Treasures’ at Colac Botanical Gardens, Colac, VIC. Exhibited Deflating Fruit.
I chose to place this fruit underneath a large tree to suit the perspective of the fallen fruit and the distinctive voluptuous features of this magnificent tree. In this project I explored the joys and frustrations of silicone, I painted layers of silicone to create a realistic stem and leaves.
Anna Jalanski 