Restraint Restrained

Restrained Restraint is a mixed media art installation dealing with issues of racism and prejudice towards the black community within the mental health services.

Working closely with the artist Kat Anderson, we designed a set of six screen-printed artworks featuring texts and excerpts uncovered from the Cultural Black Archives which sat complimentary to the primary video piece of the installation.

Using two types of specially mixed ink printed onto a matt black stock, the typographic details of the texts are revealed as fragments, only visible once coloured lighting flashes are triggered, an event which happens at a crucial part of the film, illuminating the dark exhibition space where the prints are hung.

The refraction qualities of the ink simultaneously conceal and highlight sentences, the full texts only legible when the audience views the pieces from different angles, forcing them to spend time in the darker areas of the space.

The typographic compositions of the prints are broken and uncomfortable, forcing the reader to slow down and show a greater consideration to the texts—the fractured nature of the design representing the harmful ramifications of the prejudice prevalent in mental institutions.