Photographing Mental Illness as a Patient | Sina Witness
Zhang Xinmin—Sina Witness
An estimated 173 million people in China suffer from mental disorders, according to a 2012 study in the British medical journal The Lancet, and among them, one million have serious mental illness. In 2011, a car accident left photographer Zhang Xinmin suffering from sleep disorders and mild depression. While undergoing psychiatric treatment at a hospital in the western Chinese city of Karamay, Zhang obtained permission from the hospital, patients, and patients’ families to publish these images. Zhang’s images capture the painful, private, and sublime scenes of the hospital, where a camera becomes a mirror.
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An estimated 173 million people in China suffer from mental disorders, according to a 2012 study in the British medical journal The Lancet, and among them, one million have serious mental illness. In 2011, a car accident left photographer Zhang Xinmin suffering from sleep disorders and mild depression. While undergoing psychiatric treatment at a hospital in the western Chinese city of Karamay, Zhang obtained permission from the hospital, patients, and patients’ families to publish these images. Zhang’s images capture the painful, private, and sublime scenes of the hospital, where a camera becomes a mirror.