A narrative of the imagined future : How art-making displaced a narrative of suicidality

This interdisciplinary and autoethnographic PhD by creative project examines the experience of halted suicide on the part of the researcher, an “invisible woman” raised to set aside her wants to satisfy others’ needs. The inquiry examines the researcher’s engagement with artmaking in order to manage her ongoing suicidality and analyses some of her resulting artworks, which might be described as examples of “Outsider art”.

Drawing on perspectives from philosophy, theology, psychology, art therapy and the interdisciplinary field of narrative studies, the project identifies three key factors pertinent to the researcher’s experience of halted suicide and subsequently managing suicidality. The first is the role of spirituality and the experience of epiphany or “prophetic call”. The second is a “narrative of the imagined future”. This refers to the need for people experiencing suicidality to make use of the imaginative resources generated by their depression to create a new story about their future self and life. The third factor is “radical courage”, a term adapted from the philosopher Jonathan Lear’s notion of “radical hope”. This refers to a steadfast, resolute determination to choose life over death, and to move towards the realisation of an alternative future in concrete, moment-by-moment ways.

Art-making services a number of roles in this doctoral project. In the first place, the researcher uses a series of artworks as autoethnographic sources. These chiefly take the form of watercolours and collages, most produced in visual diaries with the aim of recording states of mind and being over time. Those works produced before the doctoral project began have been subjected to close analysis in order to provide details of the researcher’s subjective experience, and thus evidence of her autoethnographic findings. The researcher has also produced a body of work during this project as a form of autoethnographic inquiry in its own right. In this case, she has consciously explored concepts in visual form and subjected the resulting images to techniques of visual analysis with the aim of deepening her autoethnographic insights.

In addition, to this art-making, the researcher has produced a body of paintings exhibited to the public. The purpose here has been to communicate her findings in visual form, supplementing and providing an alternative to the discussion in this thesis. The exhibited paintings also provide a reflexive demonstration of the process of imagining a new, future-oriented self-narrative and then exercising the courage required to bring it into life whilst also explaining how the three key factors mentioned above are layered together in the works.

The value of this doctoral project lies firstly in demonstrating the value of first-person and autoethnographic accounts for understanding suicidality, particularly those from “invisible women” whose perspectives remain under-represented in sociological and psychological literature. The project draws attention to another under-researched topic: the relationship between spirituality and the ability to halt a suicide. The project emphasises the power of imagining a new future-oriented self-narrative, and the courageous process involved in bringing that imagined narrative into being through small, incremental actions in the present. Art-making practices are also explored, particularly those by people with no formal art training who produce “Outsider art”. Finally, in using artwork and techniques of visual analysis in multiple ways, the project has value for those interested in the multi-faceted and unconventional methods associated with art-based ethnographic inquiry.